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MESSIAS AND ANTIMESSIAS. 



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MESSIAS AND ANTIMESSIAS 

51 l^rnpljEtital tfjpmtnm. 



TO WHICH ARE ADDED, 



TWO HOMILIES ON THE BODY OF CHRIST. 



CHARLES INGHAM BLACK, 

ONE OF THE CURATES OF ALL SAINTS, POPLAR, MIDDLESEX. 



"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be." — The Preacher. 

" The prophets usually represent the future under the image of the past, 
and call it by that name." — Hengstenberg on Zeeh. c. iii. $ ii. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY HERMAN HOOKER, 

S. W. CORNER CHESNCT AND EIGHTH STS. 

18 55. 

<2-^ 



ISAAC ASRilEAD, PRINTER. 



LC Control Number 




tm P 96 031892 



P HE FACE. 



The Apostle teaches us that no prophecy is of private inter- 
pretation; i.e., that in cases where in the inspired records a 
clue to the interpretation is not furnished, prophecy is to be 
interpreted not alone in accordance with the whole scheme of 
revelation, but further, such exegesis is to regard not special 
interests or local revolutions, but the interests of the whole 
family of man. 

This canon of the great Apostle is found in immediate con- 
nection with a warning against false teachers, and a reference 
to Society as it stood in the age of Noah, in the person of 
whose sons prophecy was first given to man, declaring their 
mutual relation in the earth they were to possess. I have 
been led to think that all prophecy respecting mankind must be 
understood in that wider scope which will take in, not tribes or 
nations, but races. Those instances of course excepted, where 
particular nations are expressly named, as in Daniel viii. 20, 21 ;, 
in which cases (perhaps invariably where symbol is employed) 
a Divine exposition is appended. 

An endeavor has been made in the following pages to illus- 
trate the prophetic Scriptures from this point of view. 

It has furthermore appeared to me, that the Gospel itself 
contains the key to most of the mysteries respecting Antichrist 
and the future destinies of the Church. That key is to be found 



Vlll 



PREFACE. 



in the person, office, and history of Christ himself. What he is, 
determines what his adversary is. What he suffered, illustrates 
and explains what his Church must suffer. It must always 
stand against the received and more popular expositions of the 
Apocalypse, that owing to their bulk and references to profane 
literature, they lie quite out of the reach of the poor. To the 
Scriptures themselves we must look for a concise and practical 
exposition of all that may be known of the future. 

The reader will find no difficulty, it is hoped, in tracing the 
connection between the Exposition and the subjoined Homilies. 

In the composition of the former, I have restricted myself, as 
much as possible, to the statement of my own opinions, and 
have thus avoided controversy ; partly because controversy, 
especially on such a subject, is best avoided ; partly because 
other systems of interpretation seem tenable with that pro- 
pounded here. 

Every prophecy may have a spiritual import ; but, so far as we 
are guided by our experience of God's word, every prophecy 
does certainly possess a literal signiflcancy. The fulfilment, or, 
at least, the faithfulness of the letter* is what verifies the 
spiritual exposition. There are many Antichrists, as there are 
many Christs ("Touch not mine anointed" i. e., my Christs — 
Psalm cv. 15) ; but as there is one individual Christ, so is 
there to be the one individual Antichrist. The year-day theory 
may be true ; but there is no supporter of such a theory but 
must acknowledge that that view is, to say the least, compatible 
with and based upon the fulfilments of the letter. Both may 
be true. I believe both are true ; but certainly the letter is. 
The evils which, down to the smallest errors of a corrupt creed, 
or the political vicissitudes of a petty German principality, so 



PREFACE. 



ix 



many expositors find described in the more mysterious parts of 
the Apocalypse, must certainly have been foreknown by the 
Spirit which dictated the writing to St. John. But then it 
must be admitted, that if this be the alone fulfilment, the pro- 
phecy did not attain its end of warning, as this interpretation 
was not discovered until the evils were — without reference to 
the Apocalypse at all — detected, resisted, and forsaken by 
many. 

The introduction to the Essay will, I fear, occasion dis- 
appointment. A subject is treated of there, which is supposed 
to belong to the domain of poetry rather than theology. A 
woeful supposition ! I am satisfied that practical religion— nay, 
I will venture to affirm, the faith respecting our Lord's 
divinity* — has suffered from that doctrine of reserve touching 
the angels, which is so prevalent. 

The example of our spiritual predecessors cannot be urged in 
justification of this. The last moments of the author of the 
" Ecclesiastical Polity" were solemnized by thoughts upon the 

* Since writing this I met the following passage, which I rejoice to 
find fully corroborates the opinion here advanced : — 

" The disposition of many to get rid of created spirits altogether in 
their view of the Old Testament manifestations, and to see only the 
Divine word where the ancient church saw angels, is not without its 
serious evils also. They have been preluding to a mischief, which was, 
by most of them, as little suspected as desired, — the neological infi- 
delity. For all barriers were thus removed out of the way of the 
specious but most false assertion, that while Moses taught a naked 
theism, the evidently angelic doctrine of Daniel and of the New Testa- 
ment was a contradictory and pagan addition to the early revela- 
tion." — Mill's Christian Advoc. Led., p. 99. 



X 



PREFACE. 



heavenly spirits. "He was meditating," he said, "upon the 
number and nature of angels, and their blessed obedience and 
order, without which peace could not be in heaven." Where 
the good angels are not remembered, the evil are forgotten. 
Above all things, Christians should be careful in this matter ; 
for in proportion as they keep out of view the power of Satan, 
and incline to regard him as only tlie exponent of an idea, they 
identify themselves with those who hate whatever is super- 
natural, and who have left themselves at last nothing more than 
an ideal Christ. 

If poetry be hyperbole and fiction, there is none of it in the 
Bible. If poetry be the harmonious expression of truth, the 
sublimest truth mirrored by the Almighty God in the imaginative 
faculty of his anointed ones, the Bible is all poetry, The 
awful glimpses of the unseen world, famished in Isaiah xiv. 
and other similar passages, I cannot look upon as a romance of 
God. It is the privilege of fable to employ the false to illus- 
trate the true, but God only employs the true to illustrate the 
true. The rich man and Lazarus is as much a true history as 
that of the Samaritan. Far be it from us, therefore, to regard 
Isaiah xiv. as a collection of unreal notions, borrowed by the 
prophetic mind, for the purpose of inculcating the real, from the 
dreams ot paganism ; a baseless representation, sure to mislead 
the unlearned, or to stimulate the vanity of such as venture to 
improve the word of God by minimizing it into fiction. 

C. I. B. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

"WAR IN HEAVEN. 

The Origination of the Antichristian Idea, - - - 13 



CHAPTER L 

THE WAY OP CAIN. 

The Development of the Antichristian Idea in the family 

of Adam, the first Father of the human race, - 27 



CHAPTER II. 

THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



The Development of the Antichristian Idea in the family 

of Noah, the second Father of the human race, - 43 



CHAPTER III. 

MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 

The Development of the Antichristian Idea in the family 

of Abraham, the third Father of the human race, - 67 



Xll 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE THREE FROGS. 

The Spirit of Antichrist, - 87 

CHAPTER V. 

JESUS BARABRAS. 

The Embodiment of the Antichristian Idea, - - 109 

TWO HOMILIES. 

I.— The Body of Christ Visible, 147 

II.— The Body of Christ Invisible, - 165 



INTRODUCTION. 



WAR IN HEAVEN. 

The Origination of the Antichristian Idea. 
'The Rulers of the Darkness of this World — in high Places— The Princes 
take counsel together against the Lord and his Anointed. 

The first verse of the Bible tells us not only who cre- 
ated the heavens and the earth, and when that creation 
took place ; but it further teaches us, that the first created 
things were the heavens and the earth. 

The second verse notifies to us that the earth thus cre- 
ated from some cause unrevealed fell to ruin and decay ; it 
became tenantless and shapeless ; and gloom settled down 
upon its disarranged and intermingling elements. 

From the third verse we learn that the process of crea- 
tion, or rather re-creation, began anew } and that the con- 
struction of this globe, as the abode of the human species, 
was inaugurated by the inflowing of light. 

In this interval between the first and second acts of cre- 
ation, the Angels would appear to have been called into 
existence. During the first act of creation they did not 
exist ; and of the subsequent acts of creation they were 
spectators ; the choristers of the new order introduced for 
man. 

Upon these mighty ones Scripture, in its earlier parts, 
gives us little information. From the outset, indeed, they 
appear unannounced as Deity himself, — as interested ac- 
2 



14 



WAR IN HEAVEN". 



tors in occurrences and revolutions of an everlasting im- 
port ; but it is not until he has travelled some considerable 
way through the Bible, that the student reaches those dis- 
closures respecting the Angels which are as explicit as* 
they are alarming, and which impart an appalling signifi- 
cance to what he has already found recorded of the tempta- 
tion and falL These spiritual beings,— gods, powers, prin- 
cipalities, princes of earth, and armies of heaven,- — ordained 
the messengers and servants of creation, are represented ta 
us as the Israelites of heaven,— the Most High's people in 
the world of spirits. They appear personally conformed to* 
that type which exhibits the perfection of the Divine skill, 
and which in Christ is adored as Divine. Ever represented 
as like man in person, and like man sustained by food, the 
Redeemer has declared that man shall, as to his nature, in 
one respect, become like the Angels. (St. Luke xx. 36.) 
This shall be one of the blessed consequences of holiness. 
Scripture mentions especially three of these spiritual beings 
to whom has been assigned the designation of Archangels,. 
— Heilehi 1 ) Michael, and Gabriel. The number, three, is 
deserving of notice, whether viewed in reference to the tri- 
personal Deity, or to the human family, first springing 
forth in three shoots,— Cain, Abel, Seth; and afterwards 
in the providence of God possessing the whole earth, under 
Japheth, Shem, and Ham. Viewed in connection with the 
Deity, Michael is introduced in Scripture as the agent or 
representative of God the Son. No" less distinct is the 
sphere of duty assigned to Gabriel. He appears as the 
agent of the Holy Ghost, the spirit by whom are adminis- 
tered the more awful events of Revelation. Thus it may 
probably be concluded, that the first of these three chief 
spirits held the same relation to the first person, as the 
other two certainly held and hold to the second and third 
persons of the adorable Trinity. From this symbolical 



WAR IN HE A YEN. 



15 



manifestation of the Divine persons, was perhaps derived to 
the first members of the human race those almost instinc- 
tive notions of a Trinity in the Godhead, which, claiming 
an origin independent of, if not antecedent to, written re- 
velation, have been discovered among the oldest religious 
systems of the unevangelized world. 

On the other hand, if we view these three spiritual chiefs 
in the relation they bear to the human family, and in the 
light of that truth set forth so distinctly by the prophet 
Daniel, as the divinely appointed overseers, in that age, of 
the human race, Michael appears as the Prince of Israel 
(Dan. xii. 1); Gabriel, — the messenger of the Holy Ghost, 
whose dispensation has included the election of the Gen- 
tiles, — -would thus fill the place of the Prince of Japheth. 
But Michael himself is described as withstood by the 
Prince of Persia (Dan. x. 18), by the overseer of that peo- 
ple who oppressed the people of God, and whose country 
was the cradle of the race of Ham. 

Now the history of this race, especially the history of its 
religious condition, presents it to us as peculiarly sub- 
jected to a spiritual ruler. The following pages will 
evince that this ruler is none other than the first of the 
three Archangels. 

These three are the leaders or chiefs of the heavenly 
spirits. Scripture, in the fuller statements upon this sub- 
ject which are to be found in the concluding portion of the 
Bible, describes them as attended by the armies of heaven ; 
and heaven is represented as the scene of fiery conflict, 
victory and defeat. Among these exalted beings, He'ilel 
stood pre-eminent, invested with a title, subsequently ap- 
propriated to the Son of God, " Son of the Morning/' or 
"Morning Star/' (Is. xiv. 12; Rev. xxii. 16.) 

Made in love, and made for love, the Angels must have 
found in the progressive work of creation endless material 



16 



WAR IN HEAVEN. 



and incentive for praise and adoration. It was for this 
very end,, probably, as much as for tbeir probation, that 
they were admitted beforehand to a knowledge of the 
Divine purpose. That they were admitted, Scripture itself 
intimates. On one, a most important occasion, it is re- 
corded that the design of Deity was imparted to them, as 
if for their approval. In some such way it was that God 
afterwards divulged to Abraham his determination to over- 
throw the world of the ungodly. Indeed the Redeemer 
speaks of the knowledge of the Angels as limited with 
respect to only one event, the day of Judgment, from the 
knowledge of which they have been excluded, perhaps for 
the same reason as mankind, because they have a personal 
interest in it : they await the judgment of the great day, 
as those, some of whom will execute, while others will be 
constrained to submit to the verdict of that trial. 

We are justified in concluding, that the Angels were 
employed at the creation of the Earth, as we are told they 
were employed at that great moral reorganization of the 
human family, the giving of the Law ; and as subsequently 
they were employed at the introduction of Redemption into 
the world. In the harvest of the world, in that restoration 
which will be both moral and physical, awful duties — not 
those of praise and rejoicing merely— will devolve upon 
them. 

In the first creation, however, as already intimated, they 
were not merely eye-witnesses, rejoicing in the work of 
God's hands, but also ear-witnesses of that dread decree, — 
to whom else addressed? — "Let us make man in our 
image/' 

This decree requires to be examined. It consists of two 
parts, which set forth the manner and the end of man's 
creation. 



WAR IN HEAVEN. 



17 



(1) Let us make man in our image, — and 

(2) Let man have dominion over creation. 

1. The after Scriptures speak of "but one image of God; 
the Godhead expressed bodily in the Lord Jesus — through 
him re-imparted here seminally, or in its first elements, to 
his redeemed, in whom it will be perfected in the after 
days of glory, when they will be so united to the Divine, 
that God shall be all in all. The meaning, therefore, of the 
words under review, would seem to be to the effect, that 
man was to be so created, that in him the Divine nature 
should be united with the human. 

To this the objection is obvious, that man was not so 
created. But upon this point sufficient light is not fur- 
nished to us, to justify a departure, from the plain import 
of the words. We are for the most part ignorant how far 
the Godhead was associated with and present in the first 
father of the human family. But that in some ineffable 
manner a Person of the Divine nature was present with, if 
not united to the first Adam, who was the son of God, is 
a conviction that will rise in the mind of every candid and 
thoughtful student of Scripture. ( 3 ) But through the mys- 
tery of the Incarnation only, mystically prefigured in wed- 
lock and birth, — was the perfect union between God and 
man to be effected. This however may safely be con- 
cluded : that the communion between Adam and God was 
designed to pass gradually into union : a union rendered 
impracticable for the time by the Fall. 

This certainly appears from the subsequent history, that 
one of the ends of man's creation was, that he should be- 
come the bodily expression of the Deity, through one per- 
son in the first instance, of the blessed Trinity becoming in 
Him incarnate. Such words of the new covenant as 
i?e-generation — J?6-newal — R e-demption — i?e-storation — 
imply the making good of something that has been lost or 

2* 



18 



WAR IN HEAVEN. 



forfeited. What is given back to man now interprets what 
he was deprived of in the beginning. The union of the 
human and Divine in all that are Christ's, — -setting out 
from the consummation of this union in one, is the glory 
now revealed, and in part given back to us. This was 
what our first parents sinned away. That image of God 
in which man is now renewed, is that same from which 
man by transgression fell. 

The -verification now in the Church of this everlasting 
purpose of God, Angels desire to look into and contemplate. 

2. To turn to the succeeding clause of the great procla- 
mation, concisely expressed in the words — Let man have 
dominion over creation. Man, as the image of God, was 
to be the universal Lord. This has often been confounded 
with the former; as though the image of God should con- 
sist in dominion. But the image of God, as we have 
already seen from Scripture, is the central idea of Redemp- 
tion, and consists in the participation of the Divine nature. 
And further : Did the Divine image consist in dominion, 
it would be found, not among the humble and the Christ- 
like, but among the vanquishers and troublers of mankind, 
in whom the feeblest traces, if any, are to be found of what 
is heavenly and supernatural. 

The universal dominion, therefore, must be understood 
to be something distinct from the Divine image, and to 
imply simply the lordship of all creation. 

This great end of his being, the first Adam seems to have 
realized as little in his own person as he did the Divine 
image. But evidently he did realize it, as he did the 
Divine presence, to some extent. There is no higher con- 
ceivable act of lordship, than that which is involved in the 
reviewing and naming created things. 

The heavenly ordinance in these two particulars was 
known to the Angelic hosts. This proclamation was in 



WAR IN HEAVEN. 



19 



truth a virtual announcement of the Incarnation : the set- 
ting forth of the Son of God as the Anointed One, in whom 
thus before the world was, that is, became man's abode, 
the &od of Love elected man and appointed him heir of 
all things. Thus was told the generation of the Christ; 
the adoption of the Messiahship by the everlasting Son. 
Was that decree received with expressions of goodwill to 
man, and hymns of glory in the highest ? 

In the Book of Revelation there is narrated a conflict 
between the Angels (Rev. xii. 1 — 9.); the efforts of one 
party to prevent the birth of the great Deliverer, are 
followed by its defeat, and expulsion, together with its 
Chief from the heavenly regions. This expulsion — an event 
universally understood to be long past — is here strangely 
described as occurring anew, while some circumstances no- 
where else expressly noticed in the Bible are introduced, 
not merely, we must believe, for the purpose of heightening 
the imagery of prophecy. All the incidents of the narrative 
appear as revived ; as borrowed from the past. An en- 
deavor is made by the enemy to prevent the incarnation, 
or to destroy the incarnate One when born. The armies 
of the Angels engage in fierce conflict, and the vanquished 
host falls from Heaven. 

"With the light of this revelation upon us let us turn to 
the account of the creation of the first Adam. 

To the Angels were communicated the two purposes 
which God had in view in the creation of man. It is fully 
in keeping with what the Bible reveals to us of Angels, to 
suppose that this announcement would be received by 
some with the highest exultation, by others with dissatis- 
faction. The one class would see, in G-od's humbling 
himself so as to unite himself with the lowest spiritual 
Being, an act of unutterable love, the very highest con- 
ceivable verification of the divine character; for humility 



20 



WAR IN HEAVEN. 



is the embodiment of love.( 3 ) On the other hand, those 
who might be influenced by an undue self regard, who on 
the first occasion when such a principle could bias them or 
be called into action might yield to it, would find material 
for discontent in the Godhead's uniting itself to a nature 
inferior to their own, which would thus be exalted above 
all other intelligences^ 4 ) 

Scripture, as already observed, speaks of the high dignity 
of Heilel : the first of the Archangels, his position was next 
to the Godhead, the first of created beings. And when the 
divine purpose was made known to him, what more pro- 
bable than that he should then — as afterwards he did — 
interfere to prevent it ? " It is only by pride that contention 
conieth/' and " pride goeth before a fall :" words not un- 
wisely held to refer to the event now considered. They 
are the proud who resist and are resisted by God. Holy 
writ tells us of the ambition of the great Archangel; of 
his aspiring to the honor designed for man. That when 
rejected he should prove resentful, is a further truth in- 
ferable from the sacred story. The Archangel may have 
reasoned with the Creator as we know he afterwards rea- 
soned — the different circumstances, only varying the line 
of argument — that it would be unworthy of the Deity to 
cast himself down, or to degrade himself so low, especially 
when a worthier nature stood prepared and wishful for the 
divine adoption. In this thought of foolishness lay the 
sin which made the once glorious Archangel, the Anti- 
messias, the Satan, the Enemy, the Adversary. 

1. Isaiah speaks of him in a passage, already more than 
once referred to, in which Satan and his great human 
agent are addressed as one — a mode of speech which in the 
same connection of Satan and his servant, we find repeated 
in the New Testament — as where the Lord addresses Satan 
entered into Judas. ( 5 ) In the passage now referred to, 



AVAR IN HEAVEN. 



21 



Isaiah utters the following words respecting the deceiver : 
" How art thou fallen from Heaven, 0 Lucifer, Son of the 
Morning ! for thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend 
into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, 
I will be like to the Most High." (Is. xiv. 12, 13, 14. )( 6 ) 
There is another passage equally significant in Ezekiel.— 
" Thus saith the Lord God j thou sealest up the sum, full 
of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden 
the garden of God. Thou art the anointed cherub that 
covereth ; and I have set thee so ; thou wast upon the holy 
mountain of God ; thou hast walked up and down in the 
midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways 
from the day that thou wast created till iniquity was found 
in thee — therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the 
mountain of God : and I will destroy thee, 0 covering 
Cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine 
heart was lifted up because of thy beauty ; thou hast cor- 
rupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness. I will 
cast thee to the ground." (Ezek. xxviii. 12 — 17.) 

There can be no reasonable doubt that the being pri- 
marily contemplated by the Prophets in these words, is 
Satan, identified for the time with his victim, in somewhat 
the same way as Christ and Christians are identified in 
accordance with the Redeemer's own descriptive words, 
" I in them, and they in rne." 

2. In the New Testament it is expressly stated that the 
union of the divine and angelic was absolutely set aside. 
St. Paul says, " To ivhich of the Angels said he at any time, 
Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee VI (Heb. 

i. 5, 13.) For as the Apostle observes in another place, 
" Yerily he took not on him the nature of Angels." (Heb. 

ii. 16.) In the pride which induced him to desire this 
honor, lay the sin of the Archangel. Desirous of a higher, 
they were not content to retain their own dignity (Jude 6), 



WAR IN HEAVEN. 



their first estate ; but in aspiring to a higher, the Chief 
and his followers sinned, and for their covetousness God 
spared them not.( r ) 

3. Additional confirmation of the views here propounded 
will he attained by comparing the Scriptures quoted, with 
what is recorded at St. Matth. xvi. 23. The Redeemer 
had just bestowed his benediction on the Apostle for the 
confession then made of the real character and nature of 
his Master. This praise the Redeemer accompanies with 
the imposition of a new name. The Apostle not under- 
standing the mode in which his Lord would enter into his 
glory, deprecates all idea of humiliation and suffering. 
"That be far from thee." "This shall not be unto thee." 
St. Peter would fain save his Master from all self-abasement. 
He would prevent him casting himself down. How does 
the Redeemer notice this? He at once points out the 
sameness between the reasoning of St. Peter and the 
Angel. He does not address his follower by the new name 
just given him, nor by his familiar name, but with an aw- 
ful abruptness, and a most unexampled sternness of re- 
buke, — as if for the moment contemplating him only who 
had first sinned in this fashion, he says, " Get thee behind 
me Satan, thou art an offence unto me, for thou savourest 
not the things that be of God." 

4. Lastly, the expression of St. Paul quoted above, "to 
which of the Angels said he at any time, Thou art my son," 
indicate the true import and bearing of that remarkable 
Psalm from which those words are taken. 

After describing in the first Psalm man in his perfect 
humanity, the inspired Poet in the succeeding song pro- 
ceeds to account for the opposition and hostility of the un- 
righteous, whose destruction is foretold in the concluding 
stanzas of the earlier Psalm. There is war on earth. The 
Psalmist would know why. Why is it that the nations 



WAR IN HEAVEN, 



23 



rage and the people imagine a vain thing, a lie, adopt and 
favor the fortunes of the false one ? To this inquiry, a 
heavenly speaker, the Spirit of the Revelation, or the 
apocalyptic agent replies : The reason is this. There is war 
in heaven and a conspiracy. They there, to whose spiritual 
charge the kingdoms and dominions of Creation have been 
assigned, are become confederate against Jehovah and 
his Messiah, to whom is given the universal sway. And 
these rebels have proposed to break asunder the bonds to 
be imposed upon them — of subjection to the incarnate 
Lord — and to cast away the cords, or prevent the union of 
the divine and human . The wrath of God is declared, and 
from the heaven where he sits, the spiritual Zion of the 
heavenly Jerusalem, he announces the fact, that despite 
all adversaries he has established his everlasting Son, as 
his now begotten Messiah. Or with Hengstenberg( 8 ) we 
may understand it, "I have appointed him that he be 
King on Zion." The Spirit and the Father have spoken; 
and now the Son in his new character recites the decree 
touching the Messiah's generation. "I will declare the 
decree, The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this 
day have I begotten thee." The promise of universal do- 
minion is then made : the lordship of God's image. After 
this account of the war in heaven, the rebellion there of 
Angels stimulating man to rebellion, and provoking war 
on earth, the Psalmist proceeds to warn man from the de- 
feat of Angels, to shun that ruin which must pursue them 
if they rebel or persevere in rebellion. " Be wise now ; 
therefore, Oh ye judges of the earth. Kiss the Son, lest 
he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath 
is kindled but a little." 

It is true that, in the Acts of the Apostles, the conspi- 
racy whose place has thus been fixed in heaven, is described 
as having been already brought to a head in Jerusalem, 



24 



WAR IN HEAVEN, 



when Herod and Pontius Pilate, and the Jewish rulers, 
took counsel against the Lord Jesus to put him to death. 
(Acts iv. 27.) But perhaps there is not to be found in the 
whole Bible a more striking instance of accommodation 
than that furnished in this instance. In the first place, it 
is to be observed, that the Apostles do not so much as inti- 
mate that they considered there was any fulfilment of the 
words quoted in the events referred to. Nay, further, the 
words are not introduced as a prophecy, but rather as bear- 
ing an historical character, — " who by the mouth of thy 
servant hast said, why did the heathen rage V Thus the 
Apostles simply recite the words as applicable to their own 
position at the time, and to some of the circumstances of 
the Crucifixion. The words of the psalm describe a bold, 
deliberate conspiracy, consciously formed — as a conspiracy 
must needs be — against one whose dignity the rebels all 
acknowledged, while they combined to reject his authority. 
On the other hand, the Apostles themselves make this ex- 
cuse for both rulers and people, that in crucifying the Lord 
they did it ignorantly ; and so far was there then no com- 
bining against Christ on the part of riders and kings, that 
of those invested with any power at that time, there was 
only one king, Herod, and he took no measures against 
Christ ; and one ruler, Pilate, who used considerable efforts 
to deliver his prisoner. This king and this ruler, whatever 
the Jewish chief-priests might have done, did not take 
counsel together against Jehovah or against his Anointed, 

If the psalm be considered a prophecy, it may have had 
a fulfilment in the trial of the Lord Jesus ; as the words 
of Jeremiah had a fulfilment in the massacre of Bethle- 
hem (Mat. ii. 12). But its final accomplishment must be 
sought for in the great Antichristian crisis which is yet 
to be. 

By weaving together these scattered statements of Scrip- 



WAR IN HEAVEN. 



25 



ture, these truths are elicited. The great Archangel, the 
Anointed Cherub, influenced by pride and covetousness, 
an undue sense of his own merit, and a desire for the honors 
designed for man, fell away.( 8 ) The God-Man was to be 
the World-King, and the superintendence of Earth, hitherto 
committed to the Angels, was at last to pass into the hands 
of the great Sovereign. a Not unto Angels/' but to Mes- 
siah; not to the anointed Cherub, but to the Anointed 
Son, "hath he put in subjection the habitable world to 
come." (Heb. ii. 5.) The Archangel opposed the design 
of the Most High, — the union of God and man, — and the 
proposed dominion of the Incarnate One, anointed to these 
dignities. Thus Satan is the Anti-messias } the resister of 
the Anointed One ; and all the subsequent spiritual his- 
tory of a creation exposed in a great measure to the de- 
vices and snares of the Rebel Cherub, presents us with 
little else than ever foiled and ever renevfed efforts on the 
part of Satan, to separate the world-kingdom from the 
God-Man, or to deny in him either the human or the Di- 
vine. For he is the Antichrist who denieth the Father 
and the Son ; denieth the unity of the Divine nature in 
them. (1 John ii. 22.) He is the Antichrist, and the de- 
ceiver, who denieth that this Son, Jesus, is come in the 
flesh. He is the Anti-messias who denies the Divinity or 
who denies the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. (1 St. 
John iv. 3 ; 2 St. John, 7.) 

This resistance of the heavenly hosts to the birth of him 
who should rule the nations and possess the throne of God, 
accounts in some measure for the emphasis laid upon the 
vision of Jacob, and the appearance of Angels ascending 
and descending upon the Son of Man. How the enemy con- 
tinued on earth the war of heaven ; how he fought and fared ; 
how the battle will be waged in the end ; and what will be 
the issue; will form the subject of the following pages. 
3 



CHAPTER I. 



THE WAY OP CAIN. 

The Development of the Antichristian Idea in the family of Adam the 
# first Father of the human family. 

(i The serpent beguiled Eve through, his subtilty." — 1 Cor. xi. 3. 

" A wicked spirit loveth her." — Tobit vi. 14. 

" For this cause ought the woman to have power [a veil] on her head, 
because of the Angels." — 1 Cor. xi. 10. 

The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the 
host of them ; and the home of the first family was pre- 
pared by God himself. Eden was to be to the world before 
the flood, what Zion was to have been to mankind after it. 
But the adversary came to mar that glorious work which 
the Son of God had called into existence. 

In the garden of G-od, the son o£ God, the first Adam, 
appeared in perfection : in all moral, personal, physical, 
and social attainments, very good. In the expressive lan- 
guage of an old divine — 

"We may collect the excellency of [man's] understanding, 
then, by the glorious remainder of it now, and guess at the 
stateliness of the building by the magnificence of its ruins. 
All those arts, rarities, and inventions which vulgar minds 
gaze at, the ingenious pursue, and all admire, are but the 
reliques of an intellect defaced with sin and time. "We admire 
it now only as antiquaries do a piece of old coin, for the stamp 
it once bore, — and not for those vanishing lineaments and dis- 



28 



THE WAY OF CAIN. 



appearing draughts that remain upon it at present. An Aris- 
totle was but the rubbish of an Adam ; and Athens but the 
rudiments of Paradise.'^ 1 ) 

So full was our first parent of the gifts bestowed by God 
as by a father on his child; unutterably blessed, solemnized, 
above himself exalted, by the presence and society of his 
Creator ; and prepared, his probation hour expired, to oc- 
cupy manifestly the throne of God. 

Beings of a higher order had already been subject to a 
trial of their faithfulness. It would seem as if such trial - 
was necessary to limited intelligences. The ^simple pro- 
hibition of one indulgence was all that was imposed upon 
man. 

In the garden, God had planted the two trees, the tree 
of the life, and the tree of the light; the one most probably 
designed for the physical invigoration of man, and through 
subsequent ages traceable in its effeets, in the longevity of 
the Antediluvian patriarchs; the other tree, the tree of 
knowledge or truth, was the sacramental means of impart- 
ing that Divine exemption from error which God does not 
give to man, because its effect would be to make the crea- 
ture independent of the Creator, and thus to eradicate the 
Divine life. It was enough for man, that he should be en- 
dowed with the knowledge of God, that is, the good alone. 

Man was called upon to obey the command not to eat 
of the tree : more spiritual beings had been required to 
approve, man was required to obey, the revealed will of 
his Maker. 

Long acquaintance with the sacred narratives, even from 
childhood, a misconception of the real nature and dignity 
of Adam, and the inability to realize the terrible antagonism 
of Demon power at this clay, — the ridicule heaped upon 
which indisposes many to admit it, — these causes can alone 
account for our listening unawed to the history of the 



THE WAY OE CAIN. 



29 



temptation. That occurrence can only be explained by the 
supposition that Satan desired to thwart the purposes of the 
Most High. It was the same motive actuated him, when 
ignorant through the mystery of the Incarnation of the 
real nature of the Lord Jesus, he made trial of that obe- 
dience of Christ which was faithful to the death, by death 
antidoting the disobedience by which death was brought 
into the world. 

Man was not alone the creature, but the Son of God. 
Man was distinguished from all other beings — 

1. By possessing two lives. God breathed into him the 
breath of 'lives. (Gen. ii. 5. Eng. life, Heb. lives,) — the 
natural sustained by the tree of life ; the Divine, that in 
which was involved the Divine image. 

2. The gift of language, received perfect from God, mys- 
teriously employed as the medium of temptation, and after- 
wards, as at Babel, the immediate cause of the degeneracy 
of the race, while at present it is the great social impedi- 
ment to the spread, among the unevangelized, of the know- 
ledge of Redemption. 

3. And lastly, exemption from that death which had 
effect in the lower creation, and which thus placed before 
him, made more intelligible the penalty to be exacted in 
case of disobedience. 

The appearance of Satan in a bodily form should pre- 
pare us for any future manifestation of this tremendous 
power. Thus presented to our first parents, the Evil One 
assures them — 

1. That in case they disobeyed they should not die, they 
should not undergo that only death of which they could 
form any conception, death natural. But in fulfilment of 
God's Word in that very moment they did die, by losing 
the life divine. No longer hidden from themselves in the 

3* 



30 



THE WAY OF GAIN. 



divine nature, they awoke to the feelingly sad conviction 
that they had lost God. 

2. They should be as God. This, like the former pro- 
mise, was half a truth. The Angel knew that man was to 
be in all respects as God, but not through his or man's 
own endeavor. By thus luring on Adam to leave his own 
estate, Satan made certain of his disgrace. Feeling and 
sense and judgment were distracted by the power of the 
temptation, and the union between those departments of 
the moral man was broken, when the image of God was 
lost. It was robbery in Satan to desire to be like God, 
and he therefore lost heaven, and through a repetition of 
the same offence Adam lost the kingdom of the world. 

The consequences of this disobedience were — 

1. That the Serpent Satan was cursed. This, properly 
speaking, was the only curse uttered, as the curse upon the 
ground was a blessing in effect to Adam. By the words 
that speak of his beino; bound as it were to the earth, we 
are to understand, if not his final condemnation, at least 
an exclusion for ever from Heaven as an abode ) though it 
should be open to him still as the accuser of the brethren. 

This exile from heaven and heaven's light, is the punish- 
ment inflicted upon Satan by God the Son. By God the 
Father he was ejected from heaven. By God the Spirit 
he was subsequently driven, and is now being driven from 
the earth. By the fiat of the great Judge he will be incar- 
cerated at last. All the Persons of the Trinity have passed 
or shall pass sentence upon him. 

2. The curse on the Serpent Satan is followed immedi- 
ately, as if indicating what had been the purpose of the 
Enemy, by the promise of the Avenger. This promise in 
its studied ambiguity, and its apparent exclusion of the 
Adam, would seem designed to conceal from him who 
heard it, the mode in which God would at last complete, 



THE WAY OF CAIN. 



31 



through the mystery of the incarnation, the union between 
God and man. 

3. All that had been taken from the dust was to return 
thither. In the check imposed upon the earth's fertility, 
in the exclusion from Paradise, and in the certain death 
awaiting his victims, Satan beheld the apparent accomplish- 
ment of all his purposes ; the dignity of the God-man was 
forfeited, and the crown of the World-King was set aside. 
The human couple were ruined exiles, and Angels of Glory 
stood sentinels on the path that led to Eden. The Cheru- 
bim that adorned the first sanctuary of Jehovah staid all 
access to the Paradise of God. But, oh Enemy ! destruc- 
tions will come to a perpetual end ; for J esus is the way 
back to the tree of knowledge, which is truth, and to the 
tree of life. 

In that first household of earth, where sorrow and toil 
and the shadow first came to man, the mother of all man- 
kind nourished the memory of God's promise, and in her 
first-born hoped and believed that she embraced her De- 
liverer and Avenger. Hence the expression of that too 
fond expectation, "I have got the man Jehovah." (Gen. 
iv. 1. marg.) 

It is part of the mystery of sin that its great agent is 
consistent throughout, in this respect resembling to some 
extent his divine antagonist, the same yesterday, to-day, 
and for ever. Thus the success of Satan in the temptation 
of Adam was outdone by his victory over Cain. Eve ap- 
pears to have misinformed herself as to the nature of her 
deliverance, to have meditated upon Satan's enmity, and 
to have overlooked her own offence ; hence the ever after 
error in the hope of the Messiah. She looked for the 
promised seed as an Avenger who should destroy the 



32 



THE WAY OF CAIN. 



Adversary, not, as in the first instance, a Redeemer who 
should restore her own soul. 

However the question may be decided as to the divine 
or human origin of sacrifice, or as to the early existence of 
expiatory oblations ; or again, however the better sacrifice 
of Abel may be understood, as consisting of a victim con- 
sciously offered as a type of Redemption, or as being more 
liberal than Cain's, Cain evidently sinned by withholding 
from God a full acknowledgment of his gifts, and by re- 
garding with envy, the favor bestowed upon his brother's 
altar. This envy and the workings of his pride indicate 
that the sin of the first son of man is identical with the sin 
of the first created son of God. Satan, a murderer from 
the beginning, instilled into Cain's mind his own enmity, 
and by prompting him to a resentment, which ended in 
murder, cut off from the human family all hope of de- 
liverance. 

The serpent Satan, in the temptation of the first Adam, 
was cursed to the ground ; on that occasion the anathema 
glanced from man to the earth. But now the punishment 
of Cain is, that he is cursed from the earth. Yet in this 
instance as in the former, punishment overflows with mercy 
to one who appears plunged in all the agony of remorse. 
With his personal safety guarantied by an appropriate 
testimony from heaven, Cain removed from that earth 
which was to have been the immediate dominion of the 
World-King. In that exile which should know no return, 
and which should terminate in the grave, by the punish- 
ment too great to bear. 

The succeeding history of this disinherited one shows 
how the enemy sought to wrest from the family of Eve — 
restored in Seth — the sovereignty of the world. Satan is 
the God of this system. In the family of Cain he began 
that organized opposition to Jehovah, which has resulted 



THE WAY OF CAIN. 



33 



in the establishment of his own power as the World-King ; 
a title which he will endeavor to make good in the end, 
by a revelation of himself. The World-King will affect 
to be the God-man. 

The course which he adopted thus early in our spiritual 
history, to secure to himself one of the titles of Messiah, 
was two-fold; the promotion of the family of Cain, and 
the corruption of the family of Seth. 

1. The arts and sciences of social life were in perfection 
in the first family, and like all else that was good, were 
gradually lost amid the growing miseries of sin. In the 
family of Cain they appear highly cultivated. After the 
fall of the first Adam, we are told that forthwith he con- 
summated his marriage, as if he had misunderstood the 
purport of the divine promise. After the further fall of 
the first son, Cain also became a husband and a father, and 
the sacred page is for some space exclusively occupied with 
an account of his family. (Gen. iv. 16 — 24.) 

The building of the city seems to have been an effort on 
his part, to repeal one portion of the curse by securing to 
himself a settled abode and end to his wanderings. The 
fact is mentioned without comment, but does not, on that 
account, appear approved. He called the city after his son's 
name. In all this there was perhaps a wish to perpetuate 
or revive a forfeited claim, and to establish his family ; 
a desire which under the same godless ambition of union, 
was the actuating principle of the Babel buildings. 

The inspired historian offers no comment on the next 
recorded violation of God's ordinance in the corruption of 
the marriage contract by the introduction of polygamy. 
The Lord of these fallen ones may have prompted this 
multiplying of wives in order that the outlying portions of 
the earth might be more rapidly occupied, by the offspring 



34 



THE WAY OF CAIN. 



of these unions ; thus they had children at their desire, 
and called the land after their own names. 

The corruption of marriage, as it was one of the earliest 
devices, so was it a master work of Satan's. For in thus 
changing the divine law, he directly struck at the hope of 
redemption, which is so affectingly emblematized in the 
mystery of wedlock. 

When thus established and increased, when an inherit- 
ance on the earth seemed secure, and a title to dominion 
no longer out of place, these rejected ones appropriated 
the awful name of God. " Then began men to call them- 
selves by the name of the Lord/' or Jehovah. (Gen. iv. 26, 
marg.) This was " the way of Cain." And here it may 
be observed, that it is remarkable that no mention is made 
of any death in the family of the murderer ) whereas in 
the race of Seth it is recorded of each Patriarch that he 
died, (Gen. v. ]) and we are fully justified in believing 
that length of days, even unto the Flood, was granted to 
Cain.( s ) The final notice of God's forbearance, — of his 
patient waiting for the repentance of his rebellious crea- 
tures, — is written in the words, " Yet his days shall be an 
hundred and twenty years." 

2. Not content with adopting those whom God rejected, 
Satan endeavored with almost complete success to corrupt 
and ruin those whom the Most High had chosen. Special 
attention is paid in the inspired narrative to the family of 
Seth. Mention is made of the piety of Enoch — the pro- 
phetic spirit of Lamech — the righteousness of Noah. The 
failure of Cain as the promised seed, threw light upon 
the future promise; and on the terms of the prediction 
which seemed to demand the exclusion of a natural sire. 
The Sethites, if we may judge from the language of La- 
mech, ceased to express any hope of immediate deliverance, 
while the preaching of Noah must have ] cd them to ex- 



THE WAY 01' CAIN. 



35 



pect — in the first instance — a new course of Providence; 
thus there arose an improved understanding of the first 
prediction. But Men and Spirits knew that from a daugh- 
ter of Seth, the Deliverer was to come ; whatever circum- 
stances should accompany his avatar. 

Hence the only means of counteracting the divine pur- 
pose, was to be found in the corruption of the daughters 
of Se\h. Marriage was to be in effect forbidden, and they 
were to be allured to the embraces of Spirits. 

The question of Nicodemus, " How can these things 
be !" involves a principle which has been the source of all 
false criticism and all heresy. 

It is plain from the Holy Scriptures, that there are two 
classes of Angels subjected to the judgment of God. The 
Devil and his Angels, who inhabit the darkness of the 
world ; with whom, and whom alone, mankind is engaged 
in conflict. These are already judged and condemned, and 
the everlasting fire is prepared for them. There is another 
class, between whom and man there can be no antagonism, 
for while the lost Spirits will finally be cast into the Abyss, 
(St. Luke viii. 31.) these are restrained in Elides now, 
until the judgment of the great day, (S^ c ^ -de 6.) This 
important truth points to the conclusion that some of these 
Spirits may be released in mercy at last, while their posi- 
tion in Hades, apparently under the same circumstances 
as the disembodied Spirits of mankind, argues a near ap- 
proximation to the condition of human nature. 

Scripture speaks of the judgment of these Angels, 
(1 Cor. vi. 3.), but no means are furnished to us of con- 
cluding on what grounds different awards will be given. 
But there are two passages which distinctly affirm that the 
angel-prisoners will have a share in the benefits of that 
Redemption which they desire to look into. (1 Pet. i. 12.) 

St. Paul teaches us "that in the dispensation of the 



36 



THE WAY Or CAIN. 



fullness of the times," God will " gather together in one, all 
things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are 
on Earth" that is, Spirits that were in Heaven and men 
that were on Earth. (Eph. i. 10.) 

Again : God will " by him reconcile all things unto 
himself ; by him whether they be things in Earth or things 
in Heaven," (Col. i. 20;) that is, Spirits that were in 
Heaven and men that were in Earth. 

What then was the sin for which this class of Angels 
are now incarcerated, and to the pardon— of which — as not 
consisting in rebellion — reference is probably made in the 
above quoted Scriptures ? 

It is written in J ob that God regarded the heavens (the 
inhabitants of the heavens) as stained with uncleanness, 
(Job xv. 15.) and that he charged his Angels with folly. 
(Job iv. 18.) We know what was in Israel folly and un- 
eleanness. It was departure from the covenant of grace 
and the having commerce with that which was of nature. 

Let us turn to the record of the Book of Genesis. We 
read there, that " when men began to multiply upon the 
earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of 
God saw the ^enters of men that they were fair; and 
they took them wives of all that they chose." (vi. 1 — 2.) 

By this multiplying of man — tAeman (Heb.) or the race 
of man, is to be understood the whole human family, but 
more especially those just enumerated in the whole of the 
preceding chapter. The sons of God therefore were not 
men. The surest comment upon these words is to be 
found in the Book of J ob — more particularly if it be from 
the pen of Moses — where the sons of God are the Angels. 
(Job. i.) 

As if to account for this amazing event, the sacred his- 
torian adds the sentiment, " there were giants in the earth 
in those days," more properly — the fallen ones. — Sa- 



THE WAY OF CAIN. 



37 



tan and his Angels were present, through whose seductive 
powers, when appearing probably as Angels of Light, the 
unfallen Angels were lured into sin. 

The fruit of this commerce was the race of G-iants, 
World-Kings, " Mighty Men which were of old — men of 
renown." It was the intolerable viciousness of this mix- 
ture which drew forth, in a great degree, the declaration 
of Jehovah's anger, " that his Spirit would not always strive 
with nian." 

Why the men of the first verse of Glen. vi. should mean 
the sons of Cain, where grammatically it points to the race 
just enumerated, — why the intermarriage between the 
daughters of Cain and the family of Seth, (supposing the 
latter to be the Sons of God, among whom there was but 
one righteous family) an intermarriage nowhere inter- 
dicted, should have provoked the great wrath of the 
Almighty, and why Cain's daughters should bear nothing 
less than giants to Sethis sons, — is beyond the comprehen- 
sion of any one unskilled in the principles of arbitrary 
criticism. 

1. Additional confirmation of the ancient view of this 
passage here put forward is furnished in the New Testa- 
ment. In the well known passage respecting marriage, 
(St. Matt. xxii. 30, St. Mark xii. 23, St. Luke xx. 36.) 
in the days of the resurrection, the Redeemer declares that 
the sons of the resurrection will then be like the Angels, 
in this respect, that there will be no intercourse between 
the sexes. Those words neither imply that the Angels are 
incapable of the marriage union, nor that the risen Saints 
lose in that state their sexual distinctions. But then will 
be the hour for the consummation of the spiritual marriage 
between God and his people ; when, as with the Angels 
now, all individualized affection will become absorbed in 
the Lord Jesus. The limitation however in our Lord's 
4 



38 



THE WAY OF CAIN. 



words, suggests that the condition of the Angels was not 
characteristic of them all. His redeemed will not resemble 
the Angels absolutely; but, "the Angels of God which 
are in heaven/ 7 

2. But St. Jude puts the subject beyond dispute. (Jude 
7.) "These Angels," he says, "who kept not their first 
estate/' — that is, their own dignity — " went after strange 
flesh/' and sinned against their nature. These Angels 
"left their own habitation/' they deserted their own pro- 
per nature, ( 3 ) so far as to become capable, either by as- 
suming another body or corrupting their own, of commit- 
ting folly. To the same effect St. Peter (2 St. Peter ii. 4.) 
Satan had already succeeded in tempting into sin that 
could know no pardon, many of his fellow Angels. It is 
not unreasonable to suppose that he would under some dis- 
guise, succeed in tempting others, especially to what seemed 
recommended by a love for G-od's works, and respecting 
which nothing prohibitory had been revealed by the Divine 
will. Thus their punishment might be remissible ; while 
their sin by involving in inextricable confusion the express 
promise, that the seed of the woman should destroy the 
works of Satan, and by the very closeness of the counter- 
feit permanently corrupting the faith of the race, made 
punishment a mercy. Thus it may be accounted for that 
the testimony of Enoch (Jude 14,) contains no reference 
to the generation of the Avenger, but simply announces 
his advent in wrath, accompanied by his unfallen Spirits. 
Something more that generation required to be assured of, 
so familiar with the display of antagonist spiritual .influ- 
ences. — " The Lord cometh with ten thousands — with 
myriads of his saints/'— or rather, "with his holy my- 
riads." 

We have no means of knowing what are Angelic bo- 
dies^ 4 ) an inquiry over curious, and in no way essential 



THE WAY OF CAIN. 



39 



to the present subject. It is sufficiently evident that they 
verily have eaten and drunk upon earth, in company with 
mankind. Scripture speaks of Angels' food, and the phy- 
siological suggestion is irresistible. 

Even to this time of the Christian economy, there exists 
a link of mutual influence between woman and the Angels, 
(1 Cor. xi. 10.) but whether fallen or unfallen is not stated. 
The woman was created for the man, not for the Angels. 

Frequent mention is made in our Lord's history, of un- 
clean spirits, the emissaries of Satan, which are described 
as controlling not merely adults, but, as in one instance, if 
not more, young persons. (St. Mark ix. 29.) 

These impure powers, the influential guides of paganism, 
the sources of its shocking and abominable inspiration, 
carry on now the too successful efforts of the imprisoned 
Angels, within the circle of ecclesiastical life. The eye 
that looks through the smooth surface of our social state ; 
that contemplates the secret source of all those sneers, and 
that contempt of all faith in the energies of malignant 
powers, which constitutes the illumination of the day; 
witnesses an appalling revelation. How childhood be- 
comes its own instructor in evil practices — how all that is 
hopeful and fair in early youth, mysteriously, by some 
infernal inoculation traceable often directly to no one 
corrupting object or companion, becomes blasted with the 
antiquity of sin, is no longer unintelligible. How many 
in their review of the past, quail at the recollection of the 
Spirits that haunted and ruled them — how many mourn 
all but to despair — how many alas, do despair even at the 
memory of their bondage and their woe. But while so- 
ciety has practically no faith in, nor fear of these Princes 
of Doom ; while not only is there no discipline to perfect 
the Christian soul for these wrestlings ; but worse, while a 
popular creed prevails that mocks at these foes and robs 



40 



THE WAY OF CAIN. 



the Christian of all reliance that springs from the belief of 
a divine life baptismally engrafted in hini, the Enemy is 
up and doing, and hearts that should be holy are ravaged 
by the strong ones, until like the mystic Babylon, they be- 
come the seat of all that is unclean and abhorred. Oh that 
the sound teaching of ancient days were restored in this 
respect ! Oh that teachers would remind the young that 
they are, not that they must hope to be, Christians ! and 
that as such they are called, and in the might of the in- 
dwelling life of Jesus, are enabled to contend against the 
enemies of their salvation and their G-od. 

To return and close the section. When, in the manner 
that has been described, Satan had so successfully counter- 
feited the fulfilment of God's promises, that the hope of 
the seed of the woman was in that generation, in a great 
manner destroyed, the whole earth was filled with violence, 
the certain result where the natural affections have been 
interrupted. Let us contemplate the state of society at 
such a juncture, while the two witnesses, Enoch and Noah, 
the Elias and Moses of that earlier economy, were preach- 
ing repentance, and telling of righteousness, and tempe- 
rance, and judgment to come, from the manifested Jeho- 
vah ; and while the ark of salvation — that Church of the 
past — was approaching its completion, the great Antichrist, 
named by the name of Jehovah, was present, fully deve- 
loped, in the family of the murderer. Unclean spirits 
were abroad, and all flesh Tiad corrupted its way upon the 
earth. What has been here recorded will be found recur- 
ring : a violated covenant, — the first and second fall of the 
Angels working out in man a final apostacy, and a progres- 
sive deterioration, the ambition of an universal sway, the 
mimicry of Divine religion, the fanatic violence of an ex- 
aggerated spiritualism, — that meteoric haze in which the 
demon hides himself, — all these vestiges of the Destroyer 



THE WAY OF CAIN. 41 

are miniatured to us in the city which Cain builded, — in 
the corruption of wedlock and the spiritual uncleanness 
which prevailed, — and in the worship given before the 
Flood to the visible Jehovah of this world, the first Son 
of Man. 

Strange, that after the revolutions of four millenniums, 
among the enlightened, as they named themselves, of a 
Christian age, numbers should have been found to venerate 
the first murderer, and to worship as the Supreme the Ser- 
pent which beguiled Eve ! 



4* 



CHAPTER II. 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 

The Development of the Antichristian Idea in the family of Noah, the 
second Father of the human race, 

"All the kingdoms of the world" — "All this power is delivered unto 
me ; and to whomsoever I will, I give it." — St. Luke iv. 5, 6. 

Over the baptized world floated the ark of G-od, bearing 
the hopes of another race. The disobedient were punished; 
and the young and the penitent shared the same chastise- 
ment as the reprobate. It is not required of us to believe 
that all who perished in the Flood died in actual sin, or 
died unforgiven. At length, out of this visitation, the 
earth arose with a better hope, and it may be, with the 
severity of the primal curse mitigated. 

The first prophecy spoke of the seed of the woman, and 
was announced to Satan. The next prophecy respecting 
salvation was given to the sons of Noah, which, while it 
had regard to the territorial occupation of the earth, was 
mainly of a spiritual import. Ham, through Canaan, should 
be for ever bound in spiritual bondage ; and J apheth should 
share the religious blessings of Shem, with whom alone in 
the terms of this new covenant, God is described as stand- 
ing in immediate relationship. The moral and territorial 
destinies of the three scions were to be in direct contrast. 
The intellectual greatness, and wide-spread inheritance of 
the family of Ham, was not to exempt him from the bond- 



44 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



age of corruption ; nor was the insulated position of the 
race of Japheth, to prevent his ultimately finding shelter 
under the holy coverings of the Lord Grod of Shem. 

The revolutions of mankind contemplated by prophecy 
are those which have taken place, or shall take place, suc- 
cessively in the three races. Where 2cn.j particular clan 
or nation in these great families is the subject of revelation, 
the prophet himself either openly reveals the nation's name, 
or subsequently furnishes a solution of the prediction. 
This is exemplified in the instances of Edom, Moab, Egypt, 
Israel, &c. Even when the prophecy comes by a symbolic 
exhibition, the import of the vision is afterwards given; 
as in the case of the vision of the He-Groat and the Earn. 
(Dan. viii. 3) ; under which symbols was shadowed forth 
the final conflict of Persia and Greece. Accordingly, where 
no such disclosure is made of the subject of the prophecy, 
we must endeavor to unlock it by the help of that master- 
key which G-od himself has furnished to us. The prophecy 
of Scripture which is uninterpreted to us, and which is the 
main subject of St. Peter's remark (2 St. Pet. i. 21, 22,) is 
not to be explained with any private or special reference, 
but in harmony with and reference to the revelations made 
to the sons of Noah. Those promises are to the world 
after, what the first promise was to the world before the 
Flood, — the great standard to which all are to be referred. 

The power of the World-King was first appropriated 
by the family of Ham. They settled in Persia^ 1 ) and 
stretching in a south and south-east direction, occupied 
Palestine, and the whole sweep of country between Egypt 
and China. Its members likewise founded settlements in 
America. But the two strongholds and supports of this 
mighty race were at last, Egypt and Babylon ; the former 
the spiritual, the latter the imperial centre of its vitality. 

Persia was the cradle of the family : Persia may be its 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



45 



latest home. Its different kingdoms have melted away 
before the progress of Japheth. At this day Thibet, China, 
and Japan, may be named as its great surviving empires. 
The revolutions, which, late or soon, must visit them, may 
succeed at last in carrying back into Western Asia, and 
fixing there for a time, the despotic power of the race. 

The first great man in the earth after the Flood, was the 
eighth head or chief in the family of Ham, — Nimrod, or 
the utterly wicked rebel or apostate, as his name signifies. 
The building of the tower, whose top was to reach to 
heaven, with the professed purpose of keeping possession 
of the earth for ever, in one godless combination, — and 
the claim made to Divine honor, which the word Nimrod 
indicates, — all this shows with what energy the spirit of 
the Enemy had begun already to work among mankind. 
Nimrod, if regarded as the same with Bel or Beius, the 
Sun incarnate, appears as the first visible object of Divine 
honors after the Flood ; and his tomb became the temple 
of his worship. Thus he united in his own person the 
titles of Messiah, and under him the whole human family 
was of one language and one speech. The race of the un- 
blessed, as in the case of Cain, again appears the first to 
prosper, and to have possessions in the earth. 

Afterwards, however, dominion was granted to the fami- 
lies of Japheth and Shem successively. Shein, the first 
named, for his spiritual greatness, is the last to have tem- 
poral power. The earthly power thus granted to the family 
of each son, appears to have furnished a nucleus for the 
future development of the kingdom of Antimessias. Each 
family, moreover, has been found to evolve a religious 
element. All, combined in their religious and political 
phases, compose the force and power of the great Enemy. 
These powers are the subjects of uninterpreted prophecy. 

Those outlying clans which never formed component 



46 THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 

parts of these empires, and thus have never been arrayed 
against the Redeemer, will remain exempt from the con- 
flicts of the Ant (christian world, and will compose the GrOG 
and Magog of a later dispensation/ 

The first rise and progress of the three dynasties, and 
their complete organization up to the end, is depicted in 
the dream-image of Nebuchadnezzar. Their subsequent 
resuscitation, in order to their final overthrow, is revealed 
in what was seen by Daniel and John, (and probably Ze- 
chariah,) in symbols indicative of a great moral change for 
the worse in those empires, undergone subsequent to the 
time of the King's vision. Thus the visions are progressive 
in a double way; they take up the political and moral his- 
tory of the dynasties at different and advanced stages ; each 
imparts additional illustration to its predecessor; Daniel's 
adding a spiritual aspect to the King's; John's revealing 
the personal influence of Satan over those powers, and at 
last their political and religious incorporation into him. 
To a successor of Nimrod's the revelation was in the first 
instance made; in the capital of Nimrod, the greatly be- 
loved one was taught the same awful story. Under the 
second dynasty, and another Nimrod, the friend of the 
Lord Jesus received further assurances and particulars 
respecting the same yet future events. 

The first vision to be considered is — 

§ i. The Babylonian Apocalypse of the Golden Image. 
With regard to the disclosures thus made to the great 
King, one or two introductory observations must be made. 

1. No reference is made to any pre-existent dynasties; 
or to the previous dominion of his own family; since under 
him the empire of the race reached its grand climacteric. 

2. The Medo-Persian sovereignty formed a part of the 
Babylonian, and when it became the predominant element, 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



47 



the empire was inferior neither in glory nor success. The 
Medes and Persians were but different clans of one nation, 
subject to the great King : so that, without affecting the 
integrity of the empire, a chief of the Medes or Persians 
might acquire the sceptre of Babylon. 

3. The image is to be conceived of as coming gradually 
in its several parts before the mental eye of the dreamer. 
The earlier parts appear and pass for a time from his more 
direct contemplation, until the feet — in which all the parts 
are completed — rise ; and thus at last the King is enabled 
to return and survey the whole. " Thou sawest, till that 
a stone .... smote the image. " The image is not des- 
troyed until the feet appear. All the parts co-exist, and 
are combined together, when the stone falls upon them. 
The destruction of the feet and legs is of course immediate- 
ly followed by the breaking down of all the other parts. 

Let us now examine the several parts of the image, in 
order. 

1. The head of gold. 

In Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold, the political power 
of the race of Ham was visibly embodied. Thus he repre- 
sents the kingdom as it stood in his reign, in its most 
flourishing condition. Nimrod is the eighth head in the 
family of Noah's third son, (G-en. x. 6, 7, 8) : for there 
are seven: Ham, Cush, and his five sons, Seba, Havilah, 
Sabtah, Kaamah, and Sabtecha. These five are fallen ; and 
one is, that is Cush ; and Cush begat Nimrod ; and he is 
the eighth, and is of the seven, (by personal extraction as 
well as possibly by territorial conquest,) and goeth into 
perdition. 

Nebuchadnezzar is the representative of Nimrod, as the 
possessor of his dominions. The head of gold, therefore, 
represents the power of the race of Ham. 

2. The breast and arms of silver. 



48 



THE KINGDOMS OP SATAN. 



The metal next in value to gold was employed to sym- 
bolize the power next in importance to that represented by 
the head of gold. 

The magnificence of Hamitic power suffered no eclipse 
on the death of Nebuchadnezzar; nor did the Medo-Persian 
rule create another, and an inferior kingdom. For this 
reason I venture to think, that the Medo-Persian sove- 
reignty is not here referred to. There is yet another rea- 
son. The influence of that important section of the Asiatic 
race upon the great current of prophetical history is re- 
corded at considerable length in a subsequent prophecy, to 
which the Most High has himself furnished the interpreta- 
tion. There are no grounds, therefore, for expecting to 
find the Medo-Persian again mystically prefigured in the 
Dream-Image. For the same reason may it be concluded, 
that the rise and power of Greece, equally shortlived, but 
in its relation to prophecy fully represented under the 
horn of the He-Goat (Dan. viii. 21,) is not emblematized 
in any part of the King's vision. In the same way, in 
the subsequent visions of the "Wild Beasts and the Horses, 
no notice is taken of these powers. That the same truths 
should be twice set forth under different dreams or sym- 
bols is in accordance with Scripture usage ; but I know 
not any precedent for holding that the same truths or 
facts, in the same book of prophecy, are, even while the 
prophet is expounding them, in one place retained in mys- 
tery, and then, when put forward under another class of 
symbols, explained. Finally, neither the Medo-Persian 
nor the Grecian power made any permanent impression 
on the human family. The latter rose and fell with one 
chief. 

On the other hand, the power whose marked political 
development synchronizes with the time of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, whose slow and deliberate progress, whose ferocious 



ME KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



49 



energy, in keeping with the intractable climate of its home, 
marked it from the first as future ruler of the world, is the 
Roman. The close of Nebuchadnezzar's life synchronizes 
with the reign of the last king of Home, when that young 
people became conscious of its own as yet unproved virtue. 

Now Rome represents the power of the Japhethic race. 
As the eldest of the three sons of Noah, Japheth's settle- 
ment in the earth is first described (Gen. x. 2.) $ but very 
briefly as compared with the notice taken of the family of 
Ham, which first became mighty. 

The representation of the Roman power under the figure 
of the breast and arms, accurately describes, in an ethno- 
logical point of view, the diffusion of the Japhethic race 
east and west ; as the head portrays the centralized and 
united character of the Hamitic occupation of the earth. 

If it be a refinement to discover a reference in the color 
of silver to the color of the Roman dress, or the snow- 
clad regions inhabited by the J aphethic nations ) yet cer- 
tainly the spiritual connection of the two cities which 
represent the two powers, Babylon and Rome, and the fact 
that the former was just expiring when the latter was m 
the fullest meridian of its glory, satisfactorily indicates the 
propriety of the interpretation now offered. 

8. u The belly and thighs of brass," that is u another 
third kingdom" which u shall bear rule over all the earth." 

One power only has appeared since the decline and fall 
of Rome, and that po¥/er has borne rule over all the earth, 
accomplishing in 80 what it took Rome 800 years to effect 
I mean the empire of Mahomet, the dynasty of the house 
of Shem. 

Here then we may expect, as in the former instances, 
to find some of the conditions of the Semitic race of the 
family of Ishmael referred to in the symbol, " belly and 
thighs of brass. ;; The metal may indicate, as it does else- 
5 



\ 



50 THE KINGDOMS OF SATAft. 

where, the durability of God's covenants. u The thighs** 
point to the nature of that covenant (Gen. xxiy. 2; xlvii. 29.) 
And the "belly" suggests the degradation of that covenant. 
The fierceness of his power, the revival of a patriarchal 
faith, on which it was based, and the infamous induce- 
ments by which it was made alluring to the mass, as well 
as the force by which it was propagated, give further illus- 
tration to the symbol. 

4. " The legs of iron: the feet and toes, part of iron and 
part of potter's clay" which do not coalesce. 

No permanent power has succeeded to the Mahomedan. 
Therefore this part of the image has not yet been developed. 
When this takes place, the whole image will rise before us. 
Then will the connection of the parts be revealed, but only 
that the whole may be destroyed, when the powers of the 
heavens may be shaken, (inf. Chap. V.) But the stone 
has not yet descended; the kingdoms have not yet dis- 
appeared. We can still point out the nations which recog- 
nize the bonds of the ancient empire. 

This part of the symbol consists of two parts, which are 
each twofold, — (1) the legs, which are two, and (2) the 
feet and toes, and the latter are composed of iron and clay. 
The legs represent a two-fold power. The whole body, 
whose several parts have been successively presented to us, 
and now are combined together, will be supported by two 
great fortresses. The empires are represented respectively 
by their great cities; and Babylon destroyed, the only 
other remaining historical cities are Rome and Zion. 
These two cities, organized by the great Enemy, and sup- 
ported by his emissaries, will impart action and energy to 
the whole confederation. If the fingers bear a symbolic 
character, so do the toes. The former may indicate ten 
apostate kingdoms of the Japhethic race. What is it that 
is symbolized by the toes ? 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN, 



51 



In the familiar passage,— how beautiful upon the moun- 
tains are the feet of those who bring tidings of peace, — 
the feet are employed as forwarding salvation, as types of 
missionaries. On the mountains of Zion and of Rome, the 
feet of apostate teachers will stand, to proclaim the tidings 
of Antichrist as the Saviour. Rome in her apostacy will 
represent the five apostate Churches. (Rev. ii. iii.) A like 
Jewish apostacy in accepting the false Christ, may be ex- 
pected in Jerusalem, represented by the jive unwise of the 
ten virgins which belong to the virgin daughter of Zion. 
A combination between these apostate teachers and the 
loose and unworthy members of Christ and Moses, in their 
respective places, and the weakness consequent upon this, 
will facilitate the destruction of the whole. " The king- 
dom shall be partly strong, and partly broken." 

The next vision to be examined is that of- — 

§ ii. The four wild-beasts out of the great sea. (Dan. vii.) 

These creatures the seer beholds arising out of the dis- 
turbed elements of unregenerated humanity, e. the sea, 
as distinguished from the dry land, the Church, to the 
existence of which the symbols point, thus indicating a 
Christian era as the time of the vision. The number of 
parts in this vision is the same as in the former. Now, 
since these symbols refer to the same four great domi- 
nions, then — as two of those had already risen previous to 
the time of the vision, Babylon and Rome, — the conclusion 
is irresistible, that the prophet was here permitted to see 
the resuscitation of those powers, the first rise and final 
overthrow of which had been already notified to him in the 
revelation of the dream-image of the King. The Satanic 
character of their hostility to God, peculiar to their revived 
state, is represented by the symbol of wild-beasts. 

The beasts taken in order are — 



52 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN, 



1. The Eagle-winged Lion, humbled and humanized, 
Assyria herself, if not yet resuscitated' at least disinterred; 

identifies the sj'mbol of the Eagle-winged Lion. Her 
lowly condition in all Christian time, further realizes this 
part of the vision. The Lion imports the majesty and pre- 
eminence of the empire. The eagle-wings hear a sjriritital 
signification, and point to the religious character of the 
monarchy, and the assertion of Divine honors by the King 
of Babylon. 

The prophet looked upon this beast, until he saw it con- 
trolled and humbled. Then he beheld — - 

2. The devouring Bear, with three ribs in Jiis mouth. 
As Babylon declined, the Roman power arose, if slow 

like the Bear in progressing, yet like it unrelentingly crueh 
The Roman power was dignified by no religious element, 
and accordingly wings are wanting to the symbol. The 
three tusks mark the ravages perpetrated by her in Europe, 
Asia, and Africa. As an heraldic type, in place of the 
Bear we might have expected to find the Wolf, in keeping 
with that propriety which assigned the Lion to Assyria ; 
for the Lion is a symbol of Satan as well as of Christ, of 
Babylon as well as Judah. And the Roman power is in- 
troduced as the Wolf elsewhere. Thus J eremiah, sj^eaking 
of the Romans as the desolaters of Israel, names them "the 
Wolf of the evenings," (Jer. v. 6.) The use of the varied 
symbols becomes intelligible when it is borne in mind that 
Jeremiah, in the Holy Land, naturally would most impress 
his listeners, by emplo} T ing, in his representation, an animal 
almost entirely unknown to his countrymen; while Daniel, 
— and the same remark holds of St. John, — writes at a 
distance from the country a record only of what he has 
seen. 

This Bear is described as raising itself on one side, that 
is, it raised up one dominion, or, it established one uniform 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



53 



authority. The political unity of the Roman Empire was 
one of its most striking peculiarities. Its wars were most 
bloody; and through a term of almost seven hundred 
years, were scarcely ever intermitted. It arose and de- 
voured much flesh. 

The prophet with unusual solemnity introduces the third 
beast with the words, " I beheld, and lo" — 

3. A four-winged, four-headed Leopard, to which do- 
minion was given. As the Lion indicates the east, aud the 
Bear the north, so the Leopard indicates the south as the 
scene of this wild-beast's origin, a quick and terrible 
enemy. 

The four wings symbolize a religious element; but 
limited and unaspiring : they were the wings of a fowl, 
not of an eagle. 

The four heads symbolize the instruments by which the 
power is promoted, sustained, and consolidated. 

These are Mahomet — his religion and his empire. 

As the spiritual night was gathering about Home, the 
Leopard sprang from his lair. Syria, Greece, Spain, and 
Ethiopia, yielded to his power, and followed in motley 
groups the leading of the spotted plunderer. The four 
wings of a fowl depict the four orthodox sects, the foun- 
dation stones of the base religious system. The four heads 
represent the four caliph successors, who established and 
perpetuated the power of the impostor. The wings and 
the heads were not separated ; and sword and Koran travel- 
led together. " Dominion was given to it." 

This mysterious declaration reminds us that the mag- 
nificent enterprizes of the Arabian teacher, more durable 
in their effects, and more difficult to accomplish than those 
of Rome, were permitted by the Most High. The dynasty 
he founded has survived the vicissitudes of twelve hundred 
years. The hereditary instincts, and the indomitable energy 

5* 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN, 



of tlie Semitic age, derived from the delusions which 
seemed at last to have deluded himself, all the intense 
earnestness of fanaticism. In him there glanced to earth 
a meteor which has not yet been extinguished, and the 
moral significance of which engages too little the attention 
of the Christian community. 

_A11 these Empires appear to have passed away, or to be 
just expiring. The root remains however : where the Em- 
pire is the manifestation of the race, it must be regarded as 
equally indestructible. Nearly fifty years ago the Ronian 
Empire — more eclipsed than any of the three — when even 
the long lingering title was cancelled on the scutcheons of 
Austria— suddenly reappeared for a moment in the porten- 
tous person of Napoleon Bonaparte. A like and successful 
movement may be expected again ; and that race alone is 
sufficient motive to combined action is proved by the 
alarming diffusion through Europe of the sympathies of 
Panslavism. 

Inferior in territorial greatness to the kindred dynasties 
of China, Thibet, or Japan, the Persian kingdom has sur- 
vived shocks sustained by it at the close of the dark 
and the opening of the middle ages, which bear comparison 
with those which precipitated the fall of Rome. Through 
all these it has been preserved, doubtless in order to con- 
tribute its energies, or local position, to the Hamitic do- 
minion restored either in itself, or in the Assyrian power, 
which though plucked of its stronghold Babylon, shall yet 
have its day of political resurrection. 

Who does not believe this of Home ? It is one of the 
instincts of European life, that the day of Borne is yet to 
come; that the city so often presumptuously named Eter- 
nal, shall bear a conspicuous part in the final tragedy of 
the nations. That political development is checked and 
impeded by the circumstances under which the territory of 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN, 



55 



Borne is placed. It is now subjected to a Prince who is a 
great spiritual ruler; and so long as the truth and the 
Holy Spirit in the Church he presides oyer prevails at 
Borne, so long shall the final splendour of Rome be de- 
layed^) 

Much has been said auguring the decay of Mahoniedan 
power. In Europe it may cease to prevail. The idol may 
be broken in the presence of the ark of Jehovah. But 
there are no grounds for extending this observation to 
Asia or Africa, where of late years occasionally the spirit 
of the system has shown all the violence of its old fana- 
ticism. 

4. As if indicating a long interval between the appear- 
ance of the third and fourth beast, the Prophet says, — 

u After this, I saw in the night visions, and behold a 
fourth beast" Diverse from all the beasts that were before 
it — dreadful, terrible — strong exceedingly, iron-toothed, 
ten-horned. 

Its diverseness from all the preceding, implies difference 
of nature, that it will not be merely human power. The 
iron teeth connect it with the iron part of the dream- 
image. 

The ten horns are reduced subsequently to seven, and be- 
come identified with the heads that bear them, represent- 
ing the kings and kingdoms symbolized by the fingers of 
the dream-image. Nothing indeed is said here of the 
heads ; but we are most probably to conceive of this wild- 
beast as having besides its own head, bearing four horns, 
(as in Dan. viii. 22.) the head of the first, of the second, 
and the four heads of the third beast, seven in all. Each 
horned head is described as afterwards crowned. " I be- 
held/' says St. John, (Bev. xii, 3.) "a great red dragon, 
having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon 
his heads/' 



56 



THE KINGDOMS OF SAT AX. 



The heads which here are crowned, imply the after suc- 
cesses of Daniel's fourth beast. 

This wild-beast represents the political organization in 
the world of the power of Antichrist. Out of this power 
the individual Antichrist will arise ; a small horned head 
(Yiii. 25.) he will be the actuating influence of this great 
mass. As the fierce King, he will be mighty by a dele- 
gated power, (Yiii. 23 — 24.), the source of which power he 
is described — under the designation of the wilful king — as 
honoring \ so, the Son of God is described as honoring the 
Father. (St. John Yiii. 49.) 

This power, at a later point of its history, and with some 
Yariation in the details of the symbol, was again reYealed 
to St. John. This re-manifestation will be examined when 
we haYe reYiewed the Yision of St. John, which is parallel 
to the whole of that just considered. St. John. (Rev. yL) 
beheld the rise and progress of four great powers, and each 
of the four liYing things successiYely calls his attention to 
the apparition. The going forth of these powers, at the 
Apostle's stand-point yet future, implies that either they 
will be entirely new, or only resuscitated. But their iden- 
tity with the wild beasts of Daniel will proYe that they 
will be the dynasties of the dream-image revived. 

§ iii. The four mighty hunters, or Xim rods of the world. 
(Rev. vi.) 

1. A white horse, ridden by a conqueror, to whom a 
crown was giYen, and who carries a bow. 

The bow points to Assyria. The crown is for the head 
of gold. The color of the horse — the same as that of the 
horse ridden by the Son of God (Rev. xix. 11.) — reminds 
us of the religious element in the Assyrian monarchy. ( 3 ) 

The first liYing thing — the Lion, the symbol of the 
Evangelist of the Hebrews, most fitly directs the prophet's 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 57 

attention to this vision. Now the first beast of Daniel was 
Uke a Lion. 

2. A red horse, whose rider received a sword, and takes 
peace from the eartli. 

The color of this horse indicates bloodshed. The sword 
of Rome for nearly nine hundred years took peace from 
the earth. 

This horse and rider are identical with the second beast 
of Daniel. 

The living thing — the symbol of the Pauline Gospel — 
which was written in Italy, announces the red horse. 

3. A black horse ridden by one who bears a yoke. 

The brass of the dream Image, the Leopard of Daniel's 
vision, the black horse, the yoke, and the famine, (v. 6.) 
represent the tyranny and distress consequent on the mili- 
tary progress of Mahomet. Still more appropriate will 
these parts of the symbol appear if viewed in reference to 
religion. 

The third living thing, the symbol of the Petrine Gos- 
pel-writer, who held spiritual rule in the regions of the 
Leopard, points out to St. John this third horse. 

4. And lastly. — The flying eagle, the symbol of St. 
John, who furnishes the Christian mind with the most 
affecting glimpses of the final judgment and sorrow, who 
most fully portrays the divinity of Christ and the nature 
of the Antichrist, most appropriately introduces the vision 
which represents the Enemy of his Beloved One. 

The pale horse, ridden by Death, as the Destroyer, and 
attended by Hades. 

Death here represents the power of Death, the Devil; 
and Hades follows, to indicate that the great consummation 
of all things will succeed this last exhibition of the power 
of Satan. 

The riders of the preceding horses may be regarded as 



58 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



so many manifestations of Satan, each more grievous than 
its predecessor ; the sword for those spared by the bow ; 
the yoke for the survivors of the sword ; but the last is the 
most distinct and the only personal appearing of the De- 
mon Power. 

§ iv. The complex Wild Beast of Rev. xiii. 

Here St. John describes in detail the last revelation of 
the Enemy previous to the Lord's return. Standing on 
the sand of the sea (supr. p. 51.) he beholds rising up out 
of the sea — 

A Wild Beast, lion-headed, ten-horned, ten-crowned, — 
inscribed with the names of Blasphemy. 

This wild beast is a combination of the first three of 
Daniel, for it is like a Lion, in the mouth or head — like a 
Bear in the feet — like a Leopard in body. This may be 
regarded as the structure of Daniel's fourth beast. 

One of the seven heads is wounded to death, and this 
head revived as an eighth ■grill embrace them all. It will 
rise as the little horned head of Daniel's vision, and will 
be the Antichrist. 

The heads (which are horned) were described previously 
as crowned, (xii. 3.) Here further the additional horns 
are crowned. The Antichrist triumphs. 

The import of the names of Blasphemy will be after- 
wards explained. 

1. The whole vision represents collectively the union of 
the un elect of the three races in the service of Antimessias. 

2. The heads are seven kings, who are previously 
crowned, that is, possess kingdoms, the representatives of 
nations who support the Antimessias, who thus — in some 
mysterious sense appearing as revived — unites them all. 

The number seven implies completeness. Of these seven 
kings, five are described as fallen (xvii. 10.) — <e one is — 



THE KINGDOMS Oh' SATAN. 



59 



and one is not yet come by winch words there may be 
implied some singular personal or national revolution, at 
the period of the conflict, among the scattered members 
of the great family of nations. 

3. The ten horns of Daniel, reduced to seven, became 
identified with the heads that bore them, which at last were 
crowned. From among these horned heads— in Daniel's 
vision uncrowned— in St. John's crowned— arises a little 
horn or horned head— the Antichrist— who will appear 
accompanied by ten horns crowned, ten kings or chiefs. 
The eighth head is ten-horned and ten-crowned. 

The enemy will appear, attended by a personal staff, 
for whose political establishment he will be solicitous. — - 
u They receive no kingdom as yet." The ten horns, whom 
he will find at his coming, he will in part subdue ; but 
the ten horns who attend him " have one mind, and shall 
give their power and strength unto the beast." (xvii. 13.) 
The seven heads, developing at Some (v. 9.) represent the 
chiefs of the Gentile election of Antichrist. 

The heads are Icings or mountains. Now, if all the parts 
of the prophecy, like the last, have a double significance, 
the revival of the slain head, which engages the admiration 
of the world, may mean the political revival of Israel; as 
well as the revival of an individual. 

The iron toes failed to amalgamate with the clay. The 
final embodiment of Godless political power, rises from the 
surging mass of the unregenerate, and finds uncertain 
footing upon the sand of the sea — the shifting unsound 
part of the Christian community. He has at first no ma- 
nifested position upon earth — the dry land of God recovered 
from the deathful waves ; but when he shall have achieved 
this position, and when the Blasphemer, the fierce and 
wicked King, shall appear as the Man of Sin in the temple 
of God, then the Stone shall fall and sweep away himself 



60 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



and all his synagogue, " I saw the beast, and the kings of 
the earth and their armies gathered together, to make war 
against him that sat on the horse, and against his army ) 
and the beast was taken, — -and the remnant were slain. " 
(Rev. xix. 19-21.). 

The apostate bodies, and the wavering Christians, are 
the first visited, Not so the confederated powers, who 
perhaps may not wilfully have rejected the truth — " these 
have their dominion taken away/' but " their lives spared 
for a season and a time/' (Dan. vii. 12.) " There shall 
be the plague wherewith the Lord shall smite the heathen, 
every one that is left of all the nations, whoso will not 
come up to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts." — ■ 
(Zech. xiv. 16, 17, 18.) 

These awful visions of the great crisis concern all ; for 
to all they have been given ; to the Pagan, the Israelite, 
and the Christian. Nebuchadnezzar beheld these future 
powers in their condition of political incorporation. Daniel 
when mourning over the disasters of Judea, saw mainly 
the antagonists of the God of Israel, and their overthrow 
on the glorious mountains. (Dan. xi. 43.) The Apostle 
sees them in both their aspects combined ; as destructive 
to the two branches of the mystical olive tree, the literal 
and the spiritual Israel. To the King the powers appear 
in their confederate magnificence, which makes their utter 
demolition the more affecting : the Prophets behold them 
in their more dehumanized and real colors. 

Thus, likewise, Zechariah (i. 8) beheld the mystic horses 
fading out of sight among the myrtles of Divine peace, in 
the holy mountains. Thus Jeremiah, too, (v. 6.) foresaw 
the day of their fury. " A Lion (Babylon) out of the forest 
shall slay them ; a Wolf of the evenings (Rome from the 
west) shall spoil them; a Leopard (Mecca — and the de- 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN, 



61 



scription to this day is amazingly accurate) shall watch 
over their cities." 

But apart from their political traditions, these three 
powers are bound together by a sacred language, and a 
peculiar religious element, through which they will be 
revived. 

The numbers employed in the preceding prophecies, 
and indeed throughout the Apocalypse in general, deserve 
attention from the spiritual reader. 

The number of Christ is 12 : 12 Apostles and 12 
Patriarchs. 

The number of Divine perfection is 1,000 : these multi- 
plied together 12 x 12 x 1,000 = 144,000, representing 
the number numberless of the redeemed of Israel, who 
appear with the Lamb on Zion. 

The number of Antichrist is 11. The family of Cain 
ended in the eleventh head. His number likewise is 8. 
The family of Ham is enumerated to the eighth head, 
The number of completeness- — the number of the court 
Princes of Persia, is 7. These when multiplied together, 
11x8x7 = 616, the number of the apostate Israel 
who appear on the glorious holy mountain with Antichrist, 
the number also of the wild-beast of St. J ohn. The number 
of his name may imply either the number ranked under his 
name, or the number represented by the initials of his name, 
(Rev. xiii. 18.) It may mean both. In a later section the 
latter sense will be noticed. ( 4 ) 

Here it will be sufficient to observe that the oldest read- 
ing of the text (Rev. xiii. 18.), and as the' most difficult 
in an exegetical point of view, most probably the genuine, 
gives the number XI 5) = 616. 

A further remark will close this section. 

The Antichrist is described as holding the position of a 
King among or over Kings. Obscure at first himself, 
6 



62 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



probably lie will not be manifested to the world until after 
some military successes. (Dan. vii. 8.) But he is a King 
at last, fierce and wilful, possessed of the mouth of a lion. 
The double character of the Asiatic despot to this day, will 
illustrate in a great measure this feature of the prophecy. 

" In the I-King mention is made of the fallen dragon, 
or of the spirit of the dragon, that for his presumption in 
wishing to ascend to heaven, was precipitated into the 
abyss ; and the words in which this event is described are 
precisely the same, or at least very similar to those which 
our Scriptures apply to the Rebel Angel, and the Persian 
Books to Ahriman. However, this dragon is whimsically, 
we might almost say, artlessly, made the sacred symbol of 
the Chinese Empire and Emperor. The paternal power 
of the latter is understood in a much too absolute sense : 
not only is the Emperor styled the Lord of Heaven and 
Earth, and even the Son of God; but his will is revered 
as the will of God, or rather completely identified with it ; 
and even the most determined eulogists of the Chinese 
constitution and manners, cannot deny that the Emperor 
is almost the object [the reader should be aware that these 
are the words of a papist,] of a real worship, — even a do- 
minion is ascribed to the Emperor of China, as the illus- 
trious Lord of Heaven and Earth." ( 5 ) 

Thus writes Schlegel of a people whose old sacred tra- 
ditions he represents as less disfigured with fiction than 
those of the other Asiatic nations. But the following is 
still more descriptive. 

" It can be shown by the most conclusive arguments, 
that the Kings of the Medes and Persians were regarded 
and worshipped as representatives and incarnations of 
Ormuzd. In the sacred Books of the Zend religion, we 
find the germs and outline of this view. < 'Zoroaster saw 
those kingdoms of light and darkness in a manner realized 



THE KINGDOMS OF "SATANt 



63 



on earth; Ivan* the Medo-Bactrian kingdom under" G-ust asp 
is to him the image of the kingdom of Ormnzd j the King 
himself the image of Ormuzd ; Turan the northern nomad 
land, where Afrasiab rules, is the image of the kingdom 
of darkness, under the rule of Ahriman (Heeren.) — The 
King was therefore set forth as the representative, the 
visible manifestation of Ormuzd, like him commanding 
with unlimited power ; the seven princes of the Empire, 
next in rank to him, were called the representatives of the 
seven Amshaspands, who stood round the throne of Or- 
muzd. The proofs of this Deification of the King, are 
equally clear, from the accounts of the classical writers, 
from Scripture, and from the ancient Persian monuments." 

After noticing the passage in Plutarch, where the Persian 
Artabanus explains to Themistocles, that if he would be 
presented to the King, he must offer worship, because this 
was the " best of all their customs, to honor the King and 
to worship to the image of Grod/ ; — and after referring to 
the Scripture proof of this, the infallible and irrevocable 
nature of the Imperial decree (Dan. vi. 4), and the refusal 
of Mordecai on religions grounds to give homage to the 
King (Esth. iii.), — the author proceeds to mention the 
proofs of his position furnished by Persian monuments. 

u On a wall of the principal building at Persepolis sits 
a King upon his throne. Above him hovers a half figure 
of the human shape, with a beard, dressed exactly as the 
King, and in every respect like him. On the two royal 
tombs at Persepolis this representation is repeated, only 
that in this instance the King is drawn standing with a 
bow in his hand, before the holy fire. Above the fire itself 
is seen a ball. The half figure has a ring in its hand. In 
one of the sculptures, the figure is soaring up from the 
King to the ball ; in another it is returning from the ball 
to the King. The ball is the symbol of the great original 



/ 



64 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



essence, Zervane Akerene. Oramzd appears as interme- 
diate between this and the King, as, according to the Zend 
legend, he is always placed between the infinite essence, 
Zervane Akerene, and the material creation. We may then 
suppose, either that the moving of the half figure from the 
ball to the King, and from the King to the ball, is intended 
to emblematize the idea, that between Ormuzd, as rendered 
visible in the person of the King, and the primitive cause 
of all things, there subsisted constantly the most intimate 
association ; or we may suppose, that when the half figure 
is represented as moving down to the King, the incarnation 
of Ormuzd at the coronation is signified, — and when the 
half figure is represented as mounting up from the King 
to the ball, the disembodiment of Ormuzd at the death of 
the King is betokened. We leave it to others to explain 
and establish this Medo-Persian idea by others from Lama- 
ism, which in other respects also contains not a few traces 
of affinity with the Zend religion, as well as to describe 
more exactly the kindred representations of the Indians ; 
and we only remark further, that on Egyptian monuments 
also, the Persian King appears with a symbol of Deifi- 
cation.'^ 6 ) 

In such a character will the wilful King appear, uniting 
under his sceptre the unelect of Ham, J apheth, and Shem, 
and claiming to be, by virtue of this, the Universal King. 
A wilful King, like Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar; a fierce 
King, like Sennacherib and Antiochus; a Man of Sin, like 
Herod and Nero : the representative of the He-Goat, and 
attended by the goats divided from the sheep that follow 
the Lamb of Grod. For the He-Goat, the symbol under 
which the God of the World was universally venerated in 
Pagan times, in prophecy represents the power which pro- 
duces the first King of Greece, that is, Satan — himself a 
King — the power which rules " on the face of the whole 



THE KINGDOMS OF SATAN. 



65 



earth." Out of the dismembered framework of that Ja- 
phethic dominion which Satan is described (Dan. viii. 5.) 
as having himself, by a more immediate interference cre- 
ated, will arise the Incarnate Destroyer at last. Thus the 
Antichrist will rise in the west, but will be manifested in 
and from the east. In the east will be fought the Waterloo 
of the world. The well-known designs of Napoleon upon 
the Indian tribes will be most probably wrought out by a 
future chief, under whom some nation of the west, once 
again — as the Greeks under Alexander — will find or force 
a passage through the territories of Ham ; and ere the 
final catastrophe, subject to his victorious arms the reluc- 
tant people of Asia, or enlist in his cause those who sym- 
pathize with force, if successful, and who regard mere 
power as Divine. 

" Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a 
noise like the noise of the seas y and to the rushing of na- 
tions, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty 
waters. The nations shall rush, like the rushing of many 
waters : but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee 
far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains 
before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirl- 
wind. And behold at evening, trouble, and before the 
morning he is not." — (Is. xvii. 12, 13, 14.) 



6* 



CHAPTER III. 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 

The Development of the Antichristian Idea in the family of Abraham, 
the third father of the Human Race, 

"When ye saw that Nahash, the king of the children of Ammon, came 
against you, ye said unto me, Nay; but a king shall reign over us : 
when the Lord your God was your king."— 1 Sam. xii. 12. 

The election of Abraham was the means by which God 
purposed to give the blessings of Redemption to all man- 
kind. In a great measure this blessing has already been 
imparted. From Abraham, after the flesh, the Lord Jesus 
came ; from him have descended those chosen ones, who, 
through the Scriptures they have written, and the Church 
they have edified, have been the light of the world. But 
in a yet higher degree, the promise given to Abraham re- 
mains to be accomplished, when the literal and the spi- 
ritual branches of God's election shall together share his 
favor. 

From. the calling of Abraham, prophecy, as contemplat- 
ing a twofold consummation, is of a twofold significancy. 

Among the promises received by the father of the faith- 
ful, was one respecting the land. Palestine was to be a 
second Eden. Peculiarly circumstanced, and, as far as its 
geographical position is concerned, admirably fitted to be 
both the political and moral centre of the world, (*) it re- 
alized the design of God to some extent under Solomon, 



* 



68 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



one of the points in which he proved a type of the greater 
Son of David. * 

But before the blessed feet of the Patriarch trod that 
region of prophecy, the family of Ham had already taken 
possession of it. Two persons in the Old Scriptures are 
mentioned as accursed — Satan and Canaan. In both in- 
stances spiritual impurity prepared the way for that which 
is against nature. In the one case the rejection of Messiah 
wrought out the great after sin of G-en. vi. and the destruc- 
tion of the world. The wickedness of Hani, the contempt 
shown by him for God's priesthood in the person of his 
father, issued in the overthrow of the Cities of the Plain, 
the symbol of the final conflagration of an ungodly world. 
The days of Lot, like the' days of Noe, have been referred 
to by the Redeemer, as emblematizing the state of society 
at its latest stage. The servants of Satan had appropriated 
to themselves the pleasant land; and those who kept alive 
on earth the expiring embers of natural and revealed re- 
ligion, were either living in obscurity or were vexed with 
the filthy conversation of the wicked. The patriarchal 
faith had not yet assumed a definite form. Accordingly 
we do not find at this early period any system of false re- 
ligion organized to conflict with it : when the land became 
the promised inheritance of Abraham, then by intermarri- 
age between the sons of Abraham and the daughters of 
Canaan, an effort was made to corrupt the whole race. 

To the sin of impurity and uncleanness, for which Ca- 
naan was so notorious, the moral import of circumcision 
points. It likewise suggests the exclusion of the natural 
man from any immediate part in the generation of Messiah. 
Hence, as regards both belief and practice, its fitness as a 
sacramental token of the true faith, as well as its seal ; as 
water is the baptism of Christ, besides being a sign and 
seal of God\s adoption, also sets forth, in mystery, the 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



69 



cleansing away of sin, and deliverance from the corruption 
which is in the world through lust. 

With the rite of circumcision, the promise of Messiah, 
through Isaac the son of circumcision, was entailed on the 
family of Abraham. As Messias is of the Jews — the glory 
of Israel, the light of the nations ; so Antimessias will be 
mainly of the Jews; and received by them, will on this 
account be received by the unelect world at large. 

The progress of the opposition of Antichrist to the pur- 
poses of J ehovah, revealed to Abraham, up to the founding 
of the Christian Church, and the manifestation of a spirit- 
ual Israel, will form the subject of this section. 

§ i. This opposition began with this very rite of circum- 
cision. It has been a prevailing* usage of the whole family 
of Ham. In Egypt and Ethiopia, the origin of it is lost 
in the remotest antiquity. There can, however, be little 
doubt, that it had been adopted from Abraham ; though, 
as possessing neither the promise nor the spiritual signifi- 
cancy, its use could have only resembled the use at this 
day of sacramental rites by those who belong not to the 
Church. . 

The prevalence of this rite — whether derived from Abra- 
ham or not — among the reprobated nations, was calculated 
to diminish materially the exclusive and peculiar character 
of the Jewish communion. All the nations with whom 
they had to do — with the exception perhaps of the Philis- 
tines — practised circumcision. The epithet of uncircum- 
cised, as applied to the latter, may have borne rather a mo- 
ral than a ritual import. How far the existence of this 
usage may have tended to weaken the barriers by which 
Jehovah designed to isolate His people from their neigh- 
bors, we do not know; but the fact may go some way in 
accounting for much of the strange perverscness of those 
whose national is our spiritual history, without in the least 



70 



MOLOCH; THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



diminishing their guilt, or our sense of it. The practice of 
the appointed rite already assimilated them in some degree 
to the nations of Egypt and of the land. Sanctified among 
them by no religious associations, and carried sometimes to 
an unlawful extent, the rite became, as it might be foreseen 
it inevitably would, the parent of the most shocking and 
abominable impurities of Pagan religion. 

§ ii. The second great spiritual event in patriarchal his- 
tory is the offering up of Isaac. 

The spiritual import and far-stretching significancy of 
this event, it is perhaps impossible to over-rate. In the 
Old Testament it stands forth as prominently as the Cruci- 
fixion does in the New. But though thus sacred in its 
character, it cannot be de»ied that it appears to sanctipn 
the sacrifice of human victims. All Pagan sacrifice is the 
counterfeit of God's appointed service. 

As owing to the diversity of language the original civil- 
ization of those early ages became gradually less and less, 
the offering of human sacrifices came into use. The sacri- 
fice of children by their parents is a comparatively recent 
modification of this terrible practice. The custom, whence- 
soever and whensoever originating, it is very certain was 
never practised in Egypt. On the other hand, among the 
families directly or collaterally related to Abraham, it 
seems to have been fully established, especially among the 
Ammonites, among whom Moloch was the chief object of 
worship. 

The inference from the fact would seem to be, that 
through the corruption of an original tradition — the source 
of most of the tenets and forms of Pagan religion — through 
a tradition sanctified by some heavenly associations — this 
barbarous custom arose. Vilest waters have been found 
flowing where the fountain has been the purest. Now, the 
character, the personal influence, the nomad life of Abra- 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



71 



ham, the marked expressions of the Divine complacency, 
and the earnest assurances of reward which were bestowed 
upon him when he offered up Isaac, would be certain to 
diffuse widely among the surrounding tribes, the crowning 
event of his life, until at length the sacrifice of the first- 
born would come to be regarded as the surest means of pro- 
pitiation and acceptance with God. Thus we can under- 
stand in its literal reality the sacrifice of Jephtha's daughter. 
He had been engaged in conflict with the Ammonites, 
among whom especially the sacrifice of children to their 
god was common. Thus familiarized with the custom, he 
was to offer to Jehovah whatever should come to meet 
him, — words not likely to be used of sheep or oxen, — 
a whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house/' 
(Judges xi. 31) : equally improbable is it, that sheep and 
oxen would come from the doors of his house. It was 
long after the consequence of this fatal vow that, through 
it, most probably, Israel was confirmed in the adoption of 
the unnatural and interdicted service of Moloch the King. 

By the authority of Solomon, the worship of Moloch was 
established in Jerusalem (1 Kings, xi. 7.) Ultimately it 
became the peculiar sin of the Kings of Judah, to the re- 
jection of the service at Zion of the King, the Lord of 
Hosts j as the worship of the calves at Dan and at Beer- 
sheba constituted the apostacy of the house of Israel. To 
this superstition Judah was devotedly attached. Thus the 
prophet Amos is quoted by St. Stephen, (Acts vii. 43), — 
u Ye bore the tabernacle of your King, Moloch, even the 
statue of your idol, the star of your god, which ye made 
to yourselves. " (Amos v. 26.) The star is the Scriptural 
symbol of Lucifer. The worship and the tabernacle of 
their King contrasts painfully with the King the}^ rejected, 
and the tabernacle they despised. Even in the days of 
the temple, and within its shadow, the daughters of Jeru- 



72 



MOLOCH ; THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



saleni served the tabernacle of the god of Amnion. (Ezek. 
xvi. 16.) 

As the Brazen Serpent became an idol, in the same way, 
and thus alone can it be accounted for, that in presence of 
the most singular monuments of the power of the Most 
High, and in disregard of His most affecting remonstrances, 
the religion and usages of a false God, destructive of the 
most tender and lasting instincts of our nature, should 
have sprung up, and, reviving after a temporary check, 
should strike such deep roots down among the sympathies 
of the nation, as to baffle all attempts to root them out, 
without rooting out at the same time the entire common- 
wealth. 

It was on the mountain where Isaac the son of circum- 
cision was offered, that the son of David inaugurated the 
worship of the Star, the false King; and this false worship 
was the prominent offence for which the people were taken 
captive, and the Temple was demolished. 

§ iii. The descent of the patriarch Jacob into Egypt 
introduces us to the typical history of the Church. That 
country exhibited in the Mosaic period a singular model 
of the world. Its reiterated condemnation in the law, 
deserves attention. The mention of it in the very first 
precept of the Decalogue is remarkable. Immorality, 
greater and more seductive, was insinuated into the 
Church of Israel, by the nomad tribes that lined their 
path; and the annihilation of the Canaanites determined 
upon by the Most High himself, indicates that the sin of 
Egypt was different in kind if not also different in degree. 

The explanation of this express denunciation of Egypt 
is to be found in the fact that Egypt stood in a peculiar 
spiritual relation to the Hebrews, and that the revelation 
of the Satanic power in the very elementary principles of 
its religion was most evident. 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



78 



No proof need be furnished of the statement that the 
enemy of the Most High bore sway especially in that 
kingdom ; that it was his interest to reduce to spiritual 
bondage, and finally to destroy the Israelites. All his 
power — =to whom he will he giveth it — -the power to accom- 
plish this purpose was communicated to the sovereign Pha- 
raoh, the Sun Incarnate j who is spoken of as wilfully 
rejecting the God who was proclaimed to him; u Who is 
the Lord that I should obey him V } This is formally the 
sin of blasphemy. The same as that of the Jews, (Kev. 

ii. 9., iii. 9.) who rejected Christ for their own exploded 
system. 

The great means by which the king of Egypt would 
appear to have been confirmed in this impiety, were the 
miracles wrought by the magicians, especially Jannes and 
Jambres, the mention of whom by the Apostle (2 Tim. 

iii. 8) would lead us to the belief that they were apostate 
Hebrews. They were false Prophets. The miracles were 
true operations, though in support of the lie, divinely 
permitted by the Most High for the further trial of the 
King ) and the greater elucidation of the truth. 

It was this fearful development of spiritual impurity 
.which made it necessary for God to execute judgment upon 
u all the gods of Egypt," (Gen. xii. 12,) and therefore in 
the Law, Israel was taught that it should have no other 
Gods but I AM. The bondage of Israel in Egypt was by 
the very nature of the case spiritual as well as personal. 
There was displayed to the full that servitude of the soul 
predicted to the family of Ham. Egypt was emphatically 
the land of Ham. (Ps. cvi. 22.) 

In the city of Pergamos — the scene of a violent per- 
secution of the Church — the Serpent was worshipped and 
regarded as the tutelary divinity of the place. Hence the 
throne of Satan is said to be there. (Rev. ii. 13.) 
7 



74 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL, 



There Timothy suffered mart yrdom ; and there he had 
to contend with those impure teachers, who like Jannes 
and Jarabres, resisted the truth and were reprobate con- 
cerning the faith, but whose folly should be made manifest 
unto all. Now it is deserving of notice that Egypt was the 
great centre and source of ophiolatry or serpent worship ; 
hence like Pergamos, — more truly than Pergamos — was 
the throne of Pharaoh, the throne of Satan, and the Magi 
the doctors of his synagogue. The spiritual Jerusalem 
(Rev. xi. 9,) is also named Egypt, in reference to the false 
worship which will be found established there at the last. 
The Enemy will there give his seat and throne and great 
authority to the fierce one, his adopted ; and the apostate 
prophet of a miracle-working communion will exercise 
before him all the power of the king. 

Few passages more fully represent how exact a type 
Moses was of Christ, than the passage in St. Jude which 
speaks of the conflict between St. Michael and Satan for 
his body. In the Revelation a similar conflict is mentioned 
arising about the body of Christ. (Rev. xii. 1 — 5.) These 
Scriptures are each of them both literally and spiritually 
true. The perils which beset the Lord Jesus at his first 
advent, and his flight into Egypt, represents what will take 
place in the case of the Church, when God shall bring his 
son a second time into the world. Thus also the Arch- 
angel of the resurrection, who saved the infant Moses in 
his ark and delivered his body from the grave, represents 
the influence interposed to save the communion of Moses 
from the tyranny of Egypt. The same influence now by 
God's appointment, succours and defends Christ's body on 
earth. 

The gainsaying of Korah, the Levite, the wickedness 
introduced by Balaam, and the defection of Dan from the 
worship of Jehovah, are the most instructive incidents in 



MOLOCH, THE KING OP ISRAEL. 75 

the history of Israel ; because in the clearest light they 
reveal the methods of Satan,— the means employed by him 
to corrupt the worship and the witness of the Jewish 
Church. The last of these events requires a more lengthened 
notice. During the absence of Moses on the mount of 
God, the Israelites, by the help of Aaron, made a calf — to 
go before them as a symbol of the Divine presence. The 
co-operation of Aaron would be even more surprising did 
we not know the history of the symbol which he con- 
structed. 

The calf was the form in which the cherubic powers 
were emblematized. Thus we find mention of the calf 
(Eev. iv. 7) ; and the calf or ox was probably one of the 
banner devices of Israel. The introduction of them into 
the Tabernacle and Temple, where two of them over- 
shadowed the mercy-seat, as probably the cherubim them- 
selves were grouped at the first place of worship outside 
Eden, shows that of themselves they were divinely ap- 
proved. Their symbolic import may have been to set forth 
the subjection of Angelic natures, even the highest, to 
Messiah ; and at the same time to point to the nature of 
the Atonement. Thus disposed above the ark, they formed 
the throne of manifested Deity. 

This remnant of antediluvian symbolism seems to have 
been carefully retained in the family of Ham, and at last 
it became, like the serpent, the object of religious worship. 
Thus its history, as in the case of the brazen serpent, may 
have given it in the eye of an Israelite, an undue im- 
portance. They do not, however, appear to have designed 
paying Divine honors to it, but to have employed it simply 
as a representation of Jehovah. But milclen the history 
as we may, the fact remains, that the Church of Israel 
idolatrously apostatized ; and that Aaron, thus far a false 
prophet, made an image of the Beast, and proclaimed it 



76 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



as their delivering God. (Exodus xxxii.) So gross was 
the sin, that the Most High threatens to destroy them 
utterly. As it was, they lost the Divine transcript of the 
Law; but this, it should be observed, was the only occasion 
of the Most High's threatening to destroy his elect. On 
the occasion subsequently of their unfaithful conduct in 
reference to the promised land, he expresses a resolution 
to disinherit them. On both occasions they were visited 
with a permanent chastisement, which pointed to the re- 
spective offences : the guiding presence of the Most High 
(Ex. xxxii. 34.), which they rejected, was withdrawn; the 
land which they despised was denied to them. In the 
former instance they were to learn that the symbol was 
not to be separated from the Divine presence, nor there to 
be regarded : else God would blot out their name from 
under heaven. The after story proves that the promises 
of G-od are not more certain than his threats. 

When the tribes were settled in Canaan, false worship 
was introduced by an Israelite of the tribe of Ephraim ; 
between which family and that jof Manasseh, to which 
Jephtha belonged, there may have been much community 
of feeling. The circumstance is noticed at length in the 
Book^of Judges, (chap, xvii.) It was a reintroduction, in 
some of its parts, of the worship of the calf, a sin which 
had not been perpetrated after the transgression in Horeb. 
The snare of the family of Gideon (Judg. viii. 27,) had 
already prepared the way for its revival ; and the sin of 
Micah passed over into the tribe of Dan, (Judg. xviii. 14.) 
In that tribe it became thoroughly established ; so that in 
the reign of Jeroboam their city furnished a fitting site for 
the worship introduced by him ; introduced also in close 
imitation of the Egyptian model, by uniting with his own 
regal power the supreme religious authority. Hence in 
the sealing of the new covenant, Dan and Ephraim as tribes 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



77 



are not named. (Rev. vii.) For the repetition of the sin 
God has thus far verified the denunciation, a suspension of 
which at the period of the first offence was granted to the 
prayer of Moses. Their names are blotted out. Cherub - 
worship, revived in Israel on the disruption of the tribes by 
the great father of heresy and schism, was the cause of both 
the blotting out of their names, and their disinheritance. 
They lost the land, and Messiah. But their names will be 
written again. Their sin was worse than that of Judah, 
inasmuch as it was more directly the worship of Satan. 
Hence they were punished earlier, and punished for ever. 
They have for centuries disappeared from human know- 
ledge as completely as if the fire of God had descended and 
swept them away. But the Most High never makes an end 
utterly : a family survives a world ; a remnant survives a 
race. The Almighty has preserved to himself an election 
of the house of Joseph. As tribes they took no part in the 
murder of their Prince ; yet, notwithstanding this, so great 
was the sin of worshipping the abomination of the Egyp- 
tians, that their punishment has lasted all the time of 
Judah's j and it began a long time before ! Their reap- 
pearance among the family of the nations will mark the 
close approach of the final crisis. Whatever progress 
Christianity may have made among them, so far as indi- 
viduals are concerned, there seems little reason to doubt, 
that as tribes they will reappear in an unconverted state. 
Many prophecies speak of their returning in such a condi- 
tion ; and of the conversion of Ephraim and Judah. when 
restored. Indeed, the very fact of a return argues an un- 
converted condition. 

Thus through the deceitful working of sin, the religious 
instincts of the twelve tribes were so permanently des- 
troyed, that they could not believe in the Lord Jesus. In 
exile those instincts were restored, to be again lost under 

. e 7* 



7S 



MOLOCH. THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



influences as grievous as those by which, enslaved to the 
false worship of Egypt and Amnion, Israel did obeisance 
to the fallen cherub, and Judah accepted Moloch for his 
King. 

There are some events in the history of the Jews which 
may be considered in connection with the preceding ob- 
servation. 

(i.) If, as the family of Abraham was a type of the whole 
family of heaven, the Church of Israel under Moses was a 
type of the Church of Christ in the latter days, and if we 
may regard individuals as the symbols of communities, — 
as the Apostle regards Jannes and Jambres, — Elias, and 
with him the faithful few whose light he was, form an 
affecting representation of the Body of Christ ; persecuted, 
as the alone visible representative of the Church, and 
a^ain hidden in the wilderness and there wonderfully nour- 
ished, he exhibits the sufferings of the Jewish Christian- 
izing body in the last days. Prawn away 42 months, 
1260 days, St. John speaks of the Church of the Tribes 
as, during this period, miraculously sustained by the Most 
High. That, at the beginning of the final crisis, Elias 
shall appear on earth, is not more difficult to believe, than 
that Christ shall return. But the fact that the Baptist 
went only in the spirit and power of Elias before the Re- 
deemer, and that the Redeemer speaks of Elias as the one 
even then to come, (6 psmmv ipzecSat, St. Matt. si. 10.) can 
leave no doubt of the reappearance of the prophet on earth, 
at a momentous period, which will be of equal duration 
with his own time of suffering under Ahab. 

(ii.) The threatened siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib, 
and the wonderful overthrow of his army, furnishes to a 
later prophet, in a passr.ge which shall be considered 
further on (Zech. xii.) a sketch of the final catastrophe and 
deliverance of Zion from Antichrist ; just as the siege and 



MOLOCH ; THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



79 



destruction under Nebuchadnezzar, was an historical anti- 
cipation of the siege by Titus ; a like sin in both cases, the 
rejection of the true King; a like result, the resuscitation 
of the city. That the city will be fully rebuilt and re- 
inhabited, is the promise of many portions of the inspired 
word. Already more than once has the rebuilding of the 
Temple been announced. It is indeed inconceivable how 
Jews returning to the Holy City, and possessed of any po- 
litical independence, could remain without the place of 
their united worship,- — without a building to represent the 
religious institutions of their forefathers. The parting 
words of the Son of God, as he turned for the last time 
from the Temple, obscurely indicate such a restoration. 
" Behold your house is left unto you desolate." (St. Matt, 
xxiii. 39.) His departure from Zion was the desolation of 
the shrine. " For verily I say unto you, you shall not see 
me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh 
in the name of the Lord." The place of recognition would 
seem to be the place of desertion. Hence it is out of Zion, 
that is the Temple, the Deliverer will come. (Kom. xi. 26.) 
And "The Lord shall suddenly come to his temple." 
(Mai. iii. 1.) The time of this rebuilding is the crisis of 
the Second Advent. " When the Lord shall build up Zion 
He shall appear in his glory." (Ps. cii. 16.) 

Considerable doubt has been created, as to the fulfilment 
of the prophecy of Malachi, just quoted, by the fact, that 
the temple of which the prophet spake, before Christ's 
birth had been pulled down by the unholy hands of Herod; 
a sin in which the nation became an accomplice, and which 
they might have understood the prophet to have warned 
them against in those strong remonstrances against sacri- 
lege with which his teaching closes. (Mai. iii. 8.) 

Further, the promise through Haggai was, like all the 
promises given to Israel, conditioned. It was " according 



80 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



to the word that I covenanted with you, when ye came 
out from Egypt," that the prediction was uttered, "the 
glory of the latter house shall he greater than that of the 
former." (Hag. ii. 5 — 9.) The Lord did not, in his First 
Advent, fill the house then standing with glory; for he did 
not then appear in glory; the earth was not shaken. Nor 
will it adequately meet the solemnity of predictions, four 
centuries old, that speak of judgment and punishment, to 
find the fulfilment of the one in Christ's presentation at 
the Temple; of the other, in his teaching there; when few 
if any were conscious of his glory, and none convinced as 
to who he was. The house in which the Lord in the glory 
of humiliation did appear was emphatically their house. 
61 Your house is left desolate." 

How far the postponement of the promise was owing to 
the sacrilegious act of Herod and the people is not re- 
vealed. But in the language of another Scripture the 
tyranny of Herod, the complicity of the nation in this act, 
and the apostate character of Caiaphas, were what letted 
that Christ should not be revealed at that time in glory. 
Hence if the eternal Teacher ever spoke in accents of 
scorn, he appears to have done so in replying to the re- 
marks of his disciples as they admired the temple. (Matt, 
xxiv. 2.) The objections made by the nation to Herod's 
proposal to rebuild it, were not that they expected, ac- 
cording to the words of God, to meet God in that house ; 
their dread was that Herod might not fulfil his engage- 
ments ; Herod himself may have had thoughts of claiming 
the Messiahship, which to some extent will account for his 
zeal in demolishing one and building another temple. 
Subsequently he attempted the life of him who was born 
King of the Jews; the title, which in accordance with the 
antichristian methods and devices of Satan, he already had 
appropriated. 



MOLOCH, THE KIN& OF ISRAEL. 81 

The house, however, was built by Divine permission, and 
so far recognized by the Lord as his. So also in the future 
house built on antichristian principles — though in agree- 
ment with the architectural plan supplied by the prophet 
Ezekiel (xi. xii. xiii.) — when Antichrist shall appear and 
will be worshipped, Christ shall manifest himself suddenly, 
and who shall abide the day of his coming ? In that yet 
future house the ceremonial of sacrifice will, it must be 
supposed, be restored. When Antichrist appears in it he 
will take it away, leaving the oblation of incense alone to 
be offered to himself ; but afterwards probably sacrifice will 
be continued for instruction sake, even after the period of 
conversion. The twelve "were daily," we read, "in the 
temple," amid other occupations of the soul, engaged in 
contemplating in the presence of the altar, the sacred 
realities of the law of Moses, and the harmony between 
the teaching of their lawgiver and the passion of their 
God. When the twelve tribes shall take the place of the 
twelve men as the apostles of the world, a like method of 
instruction may be ordained by the Divine King of the 
Nation. 

(iii.) For the worship of the false king, city and temple 
were destroyed ; but as if to teach the people that negative 
uprightness is little worth, that it is necessary not only to 
refuse the evil but to choose the good, city and temple 
were destroyed again for their refusal to accept the true 
King, the Ruler, and the Prince. At the first Advent the 
ark and the glory were both gone ; but this should rather 
have prepared them to desire and to receive the moral glory 
of incarnate love. The house was empty, and in some 
measure swept and garnished through the Babylonian tri- 
bulation. But the Evil One returned reinforced, and the 
last state of the nation was worse than the first. It has 
been generally observed that after the return from Babylon 



82 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



there was no return to Moloch worship. In some measure 
this may be attributed to the well known event which took 
place while they were there, and specially recorded by the 
beloved seer ; the refusal of the three Children to worship 
the golden image of Dura. 

At the period of this great ceremony Daniel was himself, 
it is supposed, absent in a distant province administering 
the charge entrusted to him ; thus he was not permitted 
to share the sufferings of his fellow exiles, or the glory re- 
vealed in and to them. So small a band of martyrs would 
seem to argue an extensive apostacy among the others. 
The sad history of human nature forbids our wondering at 
a great and enlightened monarch paying regard to an 
image as to a Deity ; infinitely more amazing is it that a 
race to whom so lately God had been brought near in the 
cloud of a national visitation, — among whom there still 
remained in all its potency the gift of inspiration — should 
be found joining in the forbidden act of Latria. The 
image, which was probably the image of the king, they 
were not called upon to believe to be a god; but all 
obeisance, under any circumstances, was forbidden them. 
One is led to the conviction by such facts in the records of 
our race, that there is in human nature an inherent and 
incorrigible bias towards the worship of what is submitted 
to the senses, the only remedy for which would seem to be 
in our realizing to ourselves the human presence of the Son 
of God : where a sense of this human presence is removed 
or interrupted by the interposition of other objects, the 
worship of some other object must take hold upon the 
heart, and hence the crisis of the great future apostacy will 
be characterized by the worship of an image — the image 
of the Wilful King. 

But this interrupting process to the recognition of Mes- 
sias, and the certain consequences just described, did take 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



83 



place in the Jewish Nation after the return from Babylon. 
Pure as the Nation is generally reported to haye been from 
the sin of Idolatry, in the interval between their release 
and the Lord's advent, they really became enslaved to a 
very subtle form of it, by converting the ceremonial of 
divine worship into the religion itself; the invisible was 
transubstantiated into the visible. Then it was that the 
gold sanctified the altar. Forms were rested in, and the 
spirit of Religion habitually violated. The day of mercy 
knew no act of mercy ; and the temple of all their love 
was the scene of a dishonest traffic. 

We have considered how the worship of the false King 
grew, and at last led to the captivity of the People. It 
remains for us to notice the germination of those principles 
in the sphere of the ecclesiastical life which in the end led 
to the rejection of the true King, and the destruction of 
Jerusalem. Here Jerusalem symbolizes in its future crisis 
the spiritual as well as the literal Israel. 

The most remarkable of these principles were : — 

1. The doctrine of Infallibility, supposed to reside in the 
High Priest or Sanhedrim. 

There is a notable instance of the force of this belief in 
the Grospel History. The Jewish authorities, regarding 
themselves as the sole expositors of the Law, claimed to be 
the absolute guide of the People, and any difference of 
opinion was sure to be punished with excommunication. 
(St. John ix. 84.) Nor were they content with attributing 
infallibility to the High Priest or Sanhedrim ; the instruc- 
tions of their chief teachers were invested with a similar 
virtue. Thus, according to the Rabbi Isaac Abuhaff, 
11 To all things which the Rabbis have taught, the same 
faith is to be given as to the Law of Moses." The 
Talmud says, " all these words are the words of the living- 
God, and that when two of them differ neither of them is 



84 



MOLOCH. THE KING 01 ISRAEL, 



to be condemned, for the words of them both are the words 
of the living God;" and, again, the Biblical text is to the 
commentary "as water is to wine."( s ) 

The dismal consequences of this faithless teaching are 
known to all. So delicate in our moral sense is the 
faculty by which we discern truth, that it may be finally 
destroyed. At the period of our Lord's teaching, the 
Church was not yet apostate. It was plain .that it would 
become so, and our Lord regards it in this light. The de- 
lusion of infallibility made this inevitable. It is the very 
peculiarity of this delusion, — this theft practised upon 
Deity— that like murder, it is always and in the most pain- 
ful way, betraying itself. Thus, in the context of the 
Scriptures quoted above, the Jewish council utters two 
false words — "that no prophet conieth out of Galilee," 
(St. John vii. 53,) whence Jonah and Nahum came — and 
u that no man knoweth whence Christ conieth." (v. 27.) 
Singularly inconsistent with their own reply to Herod. 
(St. Matt. ii. 5.) 

By appropriating to itself this principle, the Church of 
Moses could not but wax worse, deceiving and being de- 
ceived. 

2. The other element of corruption in the Jewish com- 
munion, and which prepared them to reject the Messiah, 
was their voiding the Law by their traditions, the immedi- 
ate result of which was, that sacred things were slighted, 
and unsacred things unduly reverenced. They could not 
go into the J udgment Hall lest they should be polluted ; 
but not the less furiously did they clamor for the blood of 
the Lord J esus. It would be interesting to reckon up the 
instances of direct violation of the Law, which were per- 
petrated by the Jewish authorities, at our Lord's trial and 
crucifixion. What they had labored to evacuate, they were 
unable to understand. They forsook their Father in 



MOLOCH, THE KING OF ISRAEL. 



85 



heaven, and called one on earth their father ; and because 
of this — because of their grievous infatuation — their con- 
ceit of unexampled spiritual endowments, and a marvellous 
spiritual science, the wisdom of G-od declared them to be 
fools, and blind and gross of heart. "In vain do they 
worship me, teaching for Doctrines the commandments of 
men." (St. Matt. vii. 7.) 
So shall it be. 



8 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE THREE FROGS. 

The Spirit of Antichrist. 

"I saw three unclean spirits, like frogs : they are the spirits of devils, 
[demons,] working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the 
earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that 
great day of God Almighty." — Rev. xvi. 13, 14. 

The great conflict is now waged between the spirit of 
Christ, working mightily in his redeemed, and the spirit 
which energizeth among the children of disobedience. It 
is much to be regretted that the methods by which evil 
thus opposes itself to the truth, have not been considered 
as they appear organized in the world. This neglect is 
one of the consequences of that narrow and exclusive view 
of prophecy which seeks its fulfilment in the past, and 
within the limits of European -society, or the western di- 
vision of the old Eoman Empire. 

Taking a wider field of observation, I propose consider- 
ing how, through the world at large, the conflict of the 
Spirit of Antichrist with the Spirit of Christ, has been, is, 
and probably will be carried on. 

The great design of Christianity is to unite the human 
with the Divine 5 through the waters of baptism to unite 
the creature and the Creator — the Parent and the child ; 
through the blessed feast to nourish the redeemed with the 
Redeemer ; and, through the Scriptures, to enlighten them 



88 



THE THREE EROGS. 



with the Holy Ghost. A Divine mission, a Divine light 
and life, are the means by which the union is to be con- 
summated. The Church is the Holy Family; and the 
union required for the happiness of domestic life is like 
in kind, to what is required for the strength and progress 
of the Divine. 

To destroy this union, to make a man's foes those of his 
own household, has been the great aim of Satan from the 
beginning. When the religious character of the world at 
large is considered, he appears to have reared up or esta- 
blished such bulwarks against the progress of the Gospel 
as the Church seems unable to remove. Nor is this oppo- 
sition disposed outside the Church. Under a semblance 
of greater spirituality, greater freedom, or a higher exercise 
of the reason, he has insinuated into the communion of 
Christ the principles, and modes of thought, nay, many of 
the destructive tenets of those who have never been per- 
mitted to hear the glad tidings of the Gospel. 

I propose examining briefly, and in order, the creeds of 
the respective dynasties of Ham, Japheth, and Shem, as 
methodized without, or diffusing error within the Church. 
The religious instincts of race are as indestructible as 
their physical characteristics. Those religious instincts 
now to be examined, have already been alluded to, as pre- 
serving or embalming the dynasties where they prevail, for 
the season of their resuscitation. My object will require 
me to notice only their radical peculiarities. In ritual 
details, nay, in some of their abstruser speculations, they 
have very much in common. 

It will appear, from the examination we are entering 
upon, that Satan seduces man most successfully by substi- 
tuting the false for the true; not by directly denying the 
true. He wins Mankind to regard him as their father. 
He seduces them from the true Deliverer, and leads them 



THE THREE FROGS. 



89 



to the Deceiver. In place of the truth, he gives them to 
believe the lie. 

The oldest false creed, which at this day reckons among 
its followers more than one-third of the human race, is — 

§ 1. The creed of the family of Ham — super -spiritual- 
ism. The first visible object of devotion was the sun. 
Persia and Assyria were respectively the birth and training 
place of this superstition. Thence, under the name of 
Bel or Baal it overspread the greater part of the world. 
(2 Kings xxiii. 5.) 

Under this symbol, the generative power of nature was 
represented : while the moon was held to represent the 
conceptive. Ahab established this worship in Israel; and 
the worship of both these bodies, by the two nations, is 
made frequent mention of in the Old Scriptures. This 
primitive creed spread eastwards, travelling along the route 
of the race ; and its main principles reappear in the theo- 
logy of Brahm and Buddh. 

The founders of these religions are concealed in the 
night of time. It is even a subject of discussion, which 
of the two systems was the earlier. By some the more 
popular system of the latter has been regarded as only a 
revulsion from the esoteric doctrines of the former. They 
had, probably, a distinct origin ; from community of sen- 
timent became united; and then were rent asunder by 
schism. Distinct traces have been found, in Buddhism, of 
an African origin, approximating to the period of the 
Exodus^ 1 ) And in Egypt it may have existed so long as 
to justify the theory of those who find its first apostle in 
Phut, the third son of Ham (G-en. x. 6) ; while the Brah- 
minic creed may have been shaped out of the corrupted 
traditions flowing from the family of Abraham. We shall 
speak of the two schools as composing one Church. It is 
deserving of remark, that the missionary epoch of this 



90 



THE THREE FROGS. 



system, — when it was introduced into China, — synchronizes 
with the date of the Crucifixion. From China, the tradi- 
tion runs, persons went forth, like the Magi, to hail the 
great Prophet of the West, when they were met by the 
missionaries of Buddh, who announced to them the incar- 
nation in him of the Redeemer of the world. ( 2 ) 

According to this theology, the Most High is an imper- 
sonal essence, and the object exclusively of contemplation: 
this is Brahm. This abstract being is diffused into three 
persons, the Trimurti or Divine Triad. "In this symbol/' 
says Schlegel, " the heads of the three principal Hindoo 
divinities, Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva, the gods of creation, 
preservation, and destruction, are united in one figure ; and 
this union undoubtedly indicates the primary energy com- 
mon to all three. If we examine each in particular, we 
shall see that the attributes assigned to Brahma, and the 
expressions usually applied to his person, when divested 
of their poetical garb and mythic accompaniments, may 
often almost literally and in strict truth be referred to the 
Deity. The all-pervading and self-transforming Yishnoo 
is much more the wonderful Prometheus of Nature, than 
a real and well-defined Divinity. The third in this Divine 
Triad, the formidable and destructive Siva, has but a very 
remote analogy with the Deity who judges and chastises 
the world according to justice. This god of destruction, 
[= Moloch,] whose worshippers appear to have been for- 
merly the most numerous in India, as those of Yishnoo are 
at the present day, — appears evidently to be that demon 
of corruption who brought death into all creation. This 
union or confusion of Eternal Perfection with the Evil 
Principle is made in another way by the Indian philoso- 
phers ; as some of them explain the doctrine of Trimurti 
or the Divine Triad, by reference to the Traigunyan or 
the three qualities. These three regions or degrees into 



THE THREE FROGS. 



91 



which, according to the Indian doctrine, all existence is 
divided, are, the pure world of eternal truth or of light, 
the middle region of vain appearance and illusion, and the 
abyss of darkness. "( 3 ) 

At the root of all Oriental theology lies the doctrine of 
the two principles, light and darkness. 

According to the Brahmin faith, the Deity has projected 
from himself this visible world, which is thus a manifesta- 
tion of him, with which he is identified, and which is only 
phenomenal. It is constantly appearing and evanishing; 
from him, or rather from it, it proceeds, and in it is re- 
absorbed. The elemental Beings who order it, are Mani- 
festation and Obscurity, Light and Darkness, — the Sun 
and Moon of China, the Osiris and Isis of Egypt, — the 
male and female of Indian theology. ( 4 ) 

The Prebuddhist faith of China which still exists, and 
is contained in the doctrines of Taou, the sect of reason, 
and was propagated first in the era of Confucius, about 500 
years B. C, describes the Deity as the threefold source, 
of whom the most noble dwells in heaven, the next on 
earth forgives sins, the inferior rules the waters and delivers 
from impending calamities. These three are the one indi- 
visible Monad, a kind of Sabellian Deity. This triune 
power presides in heaven over assembled divinities, Sun, 
Moon, and Stars, and sends a messenger to earth, with 
promises to the obedient of pardon of sin, and infinite hap- 
piness. This messenger is regarded as the restorer of 
reason, and has already become incarnate seven times. 
Other gods are worshipped ; but the principal divinities are 
the three pure ones — one abstract essence, represented 
by the Eternal Beason, equivalent to the Platonic Logos. 
This is the creating source of matter. ( 5 ) 

One other feature of the Eastern faith requires to be 
noticed. In consequence of a belief in a dual principle, 



92 



THE THREE PROGS. 



the Buddhist looks on matter as evil and loathsome ; to be 
delivered from which, and re-absorbed into the ocean of the 
Divine Being, is the great desire of life. The same results 
have flowed from this, as from that unexacted piety and 
undue abjectness of spirit, condemned by the Apostle, 
which, affecting to disregard, nay, to despise the body, 
really indulged to excess the carnal mind. (Col. ii. 23.) 
Even were the sublimer and purer mysteries of the Eastern 
system divulged to the vulgar, they could furnish no ob- 
struction to that immoral practice, which delights either 
to mutilate the frame, or to plunge it greedily into the 
vortex of lasciviousness. 

These notions of an impersonal Deity, of a vigorous 
creative principle projected from him, the efficient cause 
of the phenomenal universe, the dualistic notion, and the 
consequent neglect of the body, formed the most marked 
tenets of that system of falsehood styled gnosis, which the 
inspired teacher of Asia, in his Gospel and Epistles, ( 6 ) — 
and which the great Gentile Apostle of Asia in his letters 
— has denounced as damnable. ( 7 ) The doctrine of the 
Plercma (=Brahm) and Demiurge (=Brahma), and the 
generation of iEons from the male and female divinities, 
are frequently mentioned in the New Testament. ( s ) It 
was in the third century that Manes, a Persian, the founder 
of the sect, — himself a pupil of the Magi, — attempted to 
combine the two systems. Cerinthus, an Alexandrian 
Jew, was the first to propound these oriental tenets; and 
the followers of this school became notorious, not more for 
the impurity of their lives, than for the cruel discipline to 
which some of them subjected themselves, a discipline 
which still survives among the fanatics of India. " Of all 
the different systems of philosophy that were received in 
Asia and Africa about the time of our Saviour/' says the 
Ecclesiastical historian, "none was so detrimental to the 



THE THREE FROGS. 



93 



Christian religion as that which was styled gnosis or 
science, i. e. the way to the true knowledge of the Deity, 
and which we have above called the oriental doctrine, in 
order to distinguish it from the Grecian philosophy. It was 
from the bosom of this pretended oriental wisdom that the 
chief of those seets, which in the three first centuries per- 
plexed and afflicted the Christian Church, originally issued 
forth. These supercilious doctors endeavoring to accom- 
modate to their phantastic philosophy the pure, the simple, 
and sublime doctrines of the Son of God, brought forth as 
the result of this jarring composition, a multitude of idle 
dreams and fictions, a system of opinions which were partly 
ludicrous and partly perplexed with intricate subtleties, 
and covered over with impenetrable obscurity. The an- 
cient doctors, both Greek and Latin, who opposed these 
sects, considered them as so many branches that derived 
their origin from the Platonic philosophy. But this was 
pure illusion. An apparent resemblance between certain 
opinions of Plato and some of the tenets of the Eastern 
schools, deceived these good men who had no knowledge 
but of the Grecian philosophy, and were absolutely igno- 
rant of the Oriental doctrines. "( 9 ) 

The belief that the human essence is identical with the 
divine, has been, as might be expected, productive of the 
most dismal consequences, not the least perilous of which 
was the principle of interpretation introduced into the study 
of the Holy Scriptures. Hence Marcion, a native of Asia, 
the first known man of letters among the neologians, re- 
jected the doctrines of the incarnation and those parts of 
Scripture which acknowledged the paternal relation exist- 
ing between God and Christ. Thus he accepted but one 
Gospel, and of that only a portion : while of the rest of the 
New Testament what he did not mutilate he excluded from 
his canon. 



94 



THE THREE EROGS. 



Abstract speculations as to the nature of God, and the 
origin of matter and the visible world, and the rejection 
implied in this of the authority of the divine Scriptures, 
their peculiar inspiration, the verity of the miracles re- 
corded in them, either as facts or proofs of God's especial 
presence in his Church, and coupled with all this the 
notion already mentioned that the human soul is, so to 
speak, a portion of the Divine ; all these formed the dis- 
tinguishing notes of that gnosis which the Holy Ghost has 
warned the faithful against, and which is now familiarly 
termed neology. 

And from this view of Hamitic tradition, brief though 
it is, we discover what title to originality of thought or 
reason they possess, who drawing forth the old from their 
treasures under the specious color of the new, have in these 
latter days palmed off upon the literary, and too often on 
the Christian society — as the results of their own insatiably 
analytic spirit and uncompromising logic — the exploded 
theories and superannuated extravagancies of the old vision- 
ary transcendentalism. 

This revival of Hamitic theology within the Church, is 
due more particularly to one of those mighty spirits, who 
living in obscurity, receive power to revolutionize the 
world, one — who like Cerinthus who first introduced it, 
was also a Jew — Benedict Spinoza of Amsterdam, (1650.) 

I shall transcribe into as few sentences as possible, the 
principles of which he was the apostle, in order to point out 
their identity with Cerinthian neology; frankly acknow- 
ledging the fact that I am unable to grasp most of the prin- 
ciples, or even understand much of the terminology of his 
later disciples. 

(1.) And first for his notions respecting the Deity; and 
the nature of the visible universe. 

He teaches us that there is but one Eternal Omnipresent 



THE THREE FROGS. 



95 



Self-existing Being or Substance, which manifests itself in 
matter and mind; of which the former is phenomenal only, 
the latter real. And since substance cannot produce sub- 
stance, matter or the world is simply God conditioned. 
Properly speaking, therefore, there is no creation, as mat- 
ter is only phenomenal, and whatever effect there is, is 
identical with the cause. In a word ; the Deity is identi- 
fied as the natura naturans with the world or naiuva natu- 
rata, which is nothing else than the evolution of the great 
First Cause into all the modifications of thought and ex- 
tension. In the procession, and what it implies, re- 
absorption of the phenomenal, we have re-produced the 
Brahmic faith, and the derivation of Brahma from the 
impersonal Brahm. 

(2.) The succeeding fathers of Oriental philosophy in its 
G-erman phasis, have more or less modified their views 
respecting religion, by the principles here laid down re- 
specting God and nature. The logic of Kant, led Fichte 
to conclude that the external world is dependent on and 
created by the internal ; and thus at last we reach the for- 
mula, that the human is Divine ; the final triumph of sub- 
jective idealism. The world is the shadow of the human; 
and is only necessary to it as an instrument of growth and 
perfection; and to the Deity, the infinite all-pervading 
medium, neither personality nor intelligence can be attri- 
buted. Thus the Creator of the Universe is nothing more 
than the Brahm of the contemplative Hindu. ( 10 ) 

The school which has succeeded Fichte, appears to admit 
of something external to the human mind; a power superior 
to the intellect ; an absolute truth which creates, and in 
which subject and object find their identity. But Hegel 
arose to assert the absolute identity of finite and infinite. 
Schelling had taught that reality existed in the terms re- 
lated ; but Hegel maintained that it is to be found in the 



96 



THE THREE FROGS. 



relationship itself !(") Compared with these, the kindred 
speculations of the Vedas are as consistent as matters of 
every-day fact.( 13 ) 

(3.) As the result of such a logical annihilation of all 
the material world, and all that it inherit, it was to be ex- 
pected that the revelation of grace would be subjected to 
a similarly destructive process of exegesis. ( 1S ) 

Accordingly, the whole authority of the written word is 
rejected, and the functions of the Church denied. An ideal 
Christ — once the dream of some obscure English fanatics, 
in the close of the 17th century, is the received faith of 
these modern illuminati. The historical verity of our Lord's 
presence upon earth, has been explained away. Christianity 
has become a mere abstraction. On the rejection of the 
Christian body has ensued the contempt of the human frame 
as an instrument of holiness. Thus the necessity and reality 
of sacraments is denied, and with them every foundation is 
removed. ( 14 ) The Scriptures are either mutilated to meet 
preconceived notions, or their authority as an integral part 
of revelation questioned. The operation of these principles 
is not confined to the mythist or the anti-supranaturalist. 
Even in this country, among the professedly orthodox, the 
illumination of the Spirit is popularly regarded as super- 
seding all appointed means. The word of G-od( 15 ) as the 
Bible is partially and so erroneously designated, as though 
God spoke now to man through no other channel, instead 
of its true title, the written word of God, is impugned 
by those who make most profession of reverence for it. 
Robbed of all its historic evidences, and then subjected to 
the most searching analysis, in a way by which no other 
writing of antiquity has been tried, this fortress of our Zion 
is left as a cottage in a vineyard or a lodge in a garden of 
cucumbers. No wonder that among such doctors, the re- 
ceived creed should be that of Hymeneus and Philetus ; 



THE THREE FROGS. 



97 



that the latest sophists of these schools should be found 
declaring, " The idea of a future world is the last enemy 
whom speculative criticism has to oppose, and if possible, 
to overcome. "( 1G ) 

The spirit of sects is the spirit of disunion ; for if it be 
right in one teacher, it is right in every one to build a 
Church. But the inevitable forsaking of those awful rites, 
whereby irrespective of all human means, (as when he 
created the first Adam,) the Most High, as through chan- 
nels, pours himself into his redeemed, adopting, recreating, 
renewing, and transfiguring them, — this abandonment of 
the most holy sacraments, and consequently of the Divine 
writings, gives that fatal bias to all sectarian teaching which 
leads to the wildest neology. While the successors of Luther 
for the most part deny the humanity, the successors of Cal- 
vin deny the Divinity of Christ. Depreciating the ordi- 
nances of Jehovah, although setting out from opposite 
points, they have arrived at like results. The heart, sup- 
ported by no divinely appointed outward pledge of inward 
grace and election, the memorial of redemption accomplish- 
ed by the God-man for both body and soul, and so con- 
strained to dwell overmuch on abstract speculations and 
doctrines never individualized or brought home, falls back 
upon itself, becomes its own God, the centre of its own 
creation, the climax of self-worship, and concludes by 
denying that love which it is never permitted to feel, and 
from which, the channels destroyed, it derives no heavenly 
nourishment. 

§ 2. The false creed of the family of Japheth — idolism. 

J aphethic paganism may be said to have ceased to exist. 
In its day of predominance it was characterized by a dis- 
position to hero-worship, and an incapability to soar above 
material shapes and realize the existence of the great Spirit. 
A passionate idolism, as it is described by the Apostle in 
9 



98 



THE THREE FROGS. 



his harangue at Areopagus, was the prevailing feature of 
the whole religious system. "The popular religion of the 
Greeks/' Schlegel observes, " remained for the most part 
a stranger to these exalted doctrines (of an infinite 3iind, 
and a supreme all-creating Intelligence) ; and though we 
find in this mythology many things capable of a deeper 
import and more spiritual signification, yet they appear 
but as rare vestiges of ancient truth, vague presentiments, 
fugitive tones, momentary flashes, revealing a belief in a 
Supreme Being." Every spiritual conception was tran- 
substantiated by this unabstracting and uncontemplative 
temper of the race ; and its noblest deities never rose above 
the common estimate of extraordinary men. This colossal 
system of error had two strongholds, its main supports ; in 
the west Eome, in the east Athens, and subsequently 
Constantinople. 

Christianity by a slow and sure progress had just sown 
through the whole European part of the Eoman Empire 
the doctrines of the true faith, when this suppressed instinct 
of the race forced itself into action once more, never to be 
suppressed again until the Judgment. The tendency of 
Japhethic devotion appears exemplified to the full in the 
Roman communion. The multiplication of subordinate 
mediators, ail quasi-divine, and the multiplication of their 
images, is calculated to diminish our right sense of that 
human which does exist in the Divine, " one altogether' 7 
with it, by raising to the level of that Divine what is abso- 
lutely and distinctly human, and nothing more. To quote 
the words of the infidel historian, more properly I conceive 
employed as a witness to a moral fact to which he con- 
sciously testifies, than as the unconscious expositor of pro- 
phecy, because of some undesigned coincidences between 
his over-figurative style and the actual phrase of Scripture : 
" The primitive Christians were possessed with an uncon- 



THE THREE FROGS, 



99 



querable repugnance to the use and abuse of images ; the 
wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against the 
foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of 
their own hands, the images of brass and niarble, which, 
had they been endowed with sense and motion, should have 
started rather from their pedestal to adore the creative 
powers of the artist. Under the successors of Constantine, 
in the peace and luxury of the triumphant Church, the 
more prudent bishops condescended to indulge a visible 
superstition for the benefit of the multitude ; and after the 
ruin of paganism, they were no longer restrained by an 
odious parallel. The use and even the abuse of images was 
firmly established before the end of the sixth century : the 
Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of 
a new superstition. The Olympian Jove, created by the 
muse of Homer and the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a 
philosophic mind with momentary devotion ) but these 
catholic images were faintly and flatly delineated by monk- 
ish artists in the last degeneracy of taste and genius. 
The worship of images had stolen into the Church by in- 
sensible degrees, and each petty step was pleasing to the 
superstitious mind, as productive of comfort and innocent 
of sin. But in the beginning of the eighth century, in the 
full magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous Greeks 
were awakened by an apprehension that under the mash 
of Christianity they had restored the religion of their 
fathers." ( ls ) As all the conceptions of the pagan mind 
respecting heaven became materialized and represented by 
a Thessalian mountain, while the heavenly beings were 
only in their supposed possession of power above man, 
while in frailty they were represented oftentimes as much 
below, so at length the visible centre and external ma- 
chinery of the Church came to supersede all notions as to 
the invisible Divine Being who is its life, and the capital 



100 



THE THREE FROGS. 



heresy of transubstantiation made its first fatal appearance 
in the monstrous opinions which began to take root re- 
specting the Pontiff. The exclusion, consequent upon this, 
of the Lord J esus from all recognized action in his Church, 
and the substitution of the Church for the Saviour, — these 
point out the evident consummation to which the exercise 
of a professed infallibility, and the necessary doctrine of a 
development are evidently hurrying the Roman communion. 
That communion, if it does not now deny, is rapidly ad- 
vancing to the denial of the humanity of the Lord J esus ; 
and this in many ways. 

(1.) By the popular notions respecting the blessed virgin 
which represent her as deified, and which thus contradict 
the fact of her being a very woman. The professed object 
of this doctrine is to secure the Divinity of Christ. Its 
effect is to destroy all faith in his humanity. If she was not 
really woman, he could not have ever been really man. 

(2.) The Roman doctrine of the Holy Communion, 
though apparently a strong declaration of our Lord's incar- 
nation, is notwithstanding, in effect, the distinctest possible 
contradiction of it. It strikes at the verity of our Lord's 
natural body, and its enthronement now in heaven ; for 
that body cannot be at one time in more places than one. 

(3.) The same fatal conspiracy against this necessary 
truth, is discoverable in the withholding of the cup from 
the laity : that cup which is the verifying symbol of the 
blood which flowed from the side of the second Adam. 

(4.) If the Roman doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass 
be true, no words would be too awful, no reverence too 
lowly in which to express our adoring recognition of the 
present Deity. But it is notorious, it is the complaint of 
Romanists themselves, that no such temper prevails among 
those who assist at the exhibition. That irreverence is the 
most- alarming proof that the doctrine of Rome is not 



THE THREE FROGS. 



101 



believed by her own devotees. If the human nature as well 
as the Divine is not on the altar, or in the hands of each 
sacerdotal soldier of Eome who then crucifies afresh his 
Redeemer, it is nowhere. And yet neither feeling nor con- 
viction, in an overwhelming majority of instances, acknow- 
ledges it to be there. And what may be expected from 
all this, but a widely spread disbelief as to the reality of 
our Lord's humanity. 

(5.) Nor is this levity confined to the educated classes 
of the papist laity. The gross materialism of Romish 
devotion so depraves the moral sense, that their own most 
awful doctrines are often treated of in a way that would 
shock even an unbeliever. And thus in the very shadow 
of the chair of Peter, a Cardinal Prince, the instructor of 
our modern Apostles, — himself the modern Augustine of 
repentant England — -asserts that faith in the flesh of Christ 
is ahsit?*d.( 19 ') 

(6.) Image service, by rendering needless all spiritual 
abstraction, has a tendency "to lesson our sense of invisible 
things. But this is more particularly the case with regard 
to those representations where the Redeemer is exhibited 
as a baby, and so in constant dependence on the mother 
who holds him. This childishness of religion has been 
carried to a blasphemous height. Prayers addressed to 
the Redeemer as a child, which he is not, must betray the 
heart into a forgetfulness of "the man Jesus Christ;" and 
an unbelieving disregard of his present employment as 
Mediator and High Priest of our profession, without which 
and a belief in which there can be no Christianity. 

(7.) The last step which I shall mention in this process 
by which the Church of Rome is corrupting the faith of 
Christendom, is her omission of all teaching respecting the 
Lord's second advent. This all-important truth she pro- 
claims — as she does other truths — in the creeds, but 

9* 



102 



THE THREE FROGS, 



otherwise she does not teach it. On the contrary, her 
notions respecting the Church, — respecting the supreme 
Pontiff as the bodily presence and oracle of the Holy 
G-host, and in Christ's room the visible head of the Church, 
and that supremacy of the church coveted as well in tem- 
poral and political as in spiritual interests, — put entirely 
away the expectation of the return of Christ. The lesson 
has been lost upon her which the Apostle of the Gentiles 
(Rom. xi. 25,) gave to the first Christians of Rome, " not 
to be wise in their own conceits." She has usurped for 
herself the place, she has adopted all the prejudices, and 
she has fallen into the peculiar sins of Judah and Jeru- 
salem. 

It is really of little consequence that the Church of 
Rome holds theoretically the Apostles' Creed and the other 
symbols of the Catholic Church, when her practical work- 
ing which she cannot remedy, is so determinedly hostile to 
all revealed truth ; and it should be considered that she 
must in time come to repudiate all those truths. For as 
there is scarcely one heresy with which she may not, as far 
as her practice is concerned, be charged, — or a sin against 
spiritual union and even human life which may not be laid 
against her, — so, as she is unable to repent, she must become 
only the more confirmed in her treason against the Lord 
Jesus. Then, when by some deliberate act He shall have 
been taken out of the way, and the teaching of the Holy 
Spirit from the beginning removed, the apostacy of the 
last days will be organized, and with it the Man of Sin 
will be revealed. The fruitful parent of heresy and schism 
as the page of Ecclesiastical History pronounces her to be, 
she is named in Scripture after that City which is her 
home and stronghold, and portrayed as the unchaste one, 
the once faithful city become an harlot, defiled by spiritual 
impurities, and apostate at the last. 



THE THREE FROGS. 



103 



When the idolistic tendencies of our race are considered, 
one cannot help witnessing with dismay the fatal devotion 
of the Church of Rome to the images of her spiritual 
heroes. Some of these images, when consecrated by her, 
are believed to possess breath and motion. By lending her- 
self to this delusion she may well be regarded as adopting 
the surest means of attaining her own eternal ruin ; but her 
powers of deception are not exhausted by this. Appearances 
of he departed ones whom she has deified, and especially of 
the Blessed Mother, and the not unfrequent exhibition of 
the stigmata of Christ, — an exhibition in which it is impos- 
sible to conceive any good moral or religious purpose, — 
these are the subtle processes by which, it may be unwit- 
tingly, she disciplines her devotees to find in the unexpected 
appearance and the deadly wound, as well as the breathing 
image of the false, the genuine characters of the veritable 
Messiah. 

It only remains for us to consider, — 

§ 3. The false creed of the family of Shem — Pseudo- 
Intellectual ism . 

When the idolism of the Japhethic family was revived 
and in a Christian form reestablished, the intellectualism of 
the Mahomedan creed arose. In no case perhaps is the 
indelibleness of an originally impressed religious character 
more distinctly evidenced than in the unitarian symbol of 
the Prophet,( 20 ) 

To Abraham the Deity would seem to have revealed 
himself as a unipersonal Being, as the mode most sublime 
and the most calculated to correct the Patriarch's disposition 
to polytheism. Thus in the Mosaic writings, probably in 
consequence of the prevailing errors, God is proclaimed 
without any distinct reference to the persons of the Son 
and Spirit. We now of course perusing the Old Scriptures 
by the light of Christian illumination find the Catholic faith 



104 



THE THREE FROGS. 



of the Trinity abundantly asserted even within the compass 
of the Law. The creed of Mahomet affected to be the 
patriarchal faith restored. 

The rise of Mahomet occurred in the century which 
witnessed the development of papal power and the estab- 
lishment of image worship. His professed mission was to 
destroy polytheism and idolatry. He and his followers 
uniformly avoided in any way subjecting their notions of 
the Deity to the senses or imagination. With them " the 
intellectual image of the Deity," says the historian, " has 
never been degraded by any visible idol."( 21 ) The prophet 
himself alike deceiving and deceived may have admitted 
much of sacred truth into his system, in the hope at the 
outset of his career of conciliating the Christian and the 
Jews. It is the large admixture of what God has revealed 
with the base alloy of his own fancies or existing heresies 
which has given to the Mahomedan creed so long and 
prosperous a supremacy, despite the violence by which 
it has been propagated and the sensuality it approves. As 
a religious system it has incurred no danger from the in- 
vention of printing, or the diffusion of intelligence con- 
sequent upon this, among its votaries. 

But though professing a Divine origin for its peculiar 
tenets respecting the divine nature, as revealed to the Pa- 
triarchs, and claiming for its great apostle a descent from 
the Father of the faithful, the Mahomedan communion is 
that body which is now formally chargeable with the sin 
against the Holy Ghost, for it arose against Him, and 
caused apostacy from Him. It alone repudiates the mani- 
festation in the Church of the third person of the adorable 
Trinity; and only so far as it does this does it reject the 
Spirit's teaching respecting Christ. 

The Mahomedan communion acknowledges, on this head, 
most of what was acknowledged by the Arianizing region it 



THE THREE FROGS. 



105 



has occupied, — the supernatural conception and the super- 
natural character of Jesus of Nazareth, and, the reality of 
his death and resurrection excepted, every thing that be- 
longs to his historical personality; nay, it probably fur- 
nished to Rome the first idea of the immaculate conception 
of the Blessed Virgin. In rejecting, however, the divinity 
of the Holy Spirit, a3 operating in the Church, it of course 
has denied the Divinity of the Redeemer. Nay, further, 
to Mahomet himself attaches the tremendous guilt of as- 
piring to be himself the manifestation of the promised 
Paraclete. "The Evangelic promise of the Holy Ghost 
was prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the per- 
son of Mahomet, the greatest and last of the apostles of 
of God."( 2S ) 

The influence of this religion on the Church of Christ 
was mainly that of force at the beginning of its career; 
though it derived much positive support from the Sabelli- 
an( 23 ) and Arian( 24 ) heresies prevalent in the countries of 
its birth. In sympathy with it now( 35 ) all opinions must 
be regarded which reject the Divinity of Christ, or disre- 
gard the authority of the Holy Spirit. It symbolizes with 
the papist in depreciating the Scriptures ; it agrees with 
the orientalist in rejecting the incarnation. The unitarian, 
who arrogates to himself a designation which he alone can- 
not claim, as he peculiarly denies the Divine unity, pro- 
fesses to accept only what he can understand ;( 23 ) but when 
his book and his apostle's mission are each subjected to the 
same mythicising, unfriendly criticism as the Church and 
her Scriptures have had to undergo; when, with every 
other masterwork of delusion, the Arabian system has been 
thoroughly sifted ; it will be satisfactorily evinced that of 
all believers, the most bigoted, unin^uiring, and timid, 
are unbelievers; and that the Christian who humbly re- 
gards the Church, the sacraments and the Scriptures as the 



106 



THE THREEEROGS 



divinely appointed channels by which God Almighty in- 
fuses into man everlasting life, and grace, and light, who 
has seen his faith come forth all the more certain from the 
furnace of Arabian persecution, such and such alone pos- 
sesses a talisman which, while it interprets to himself the 
mysteries of his own nature, harmonizes the instincts of 
the diviner faculty within him, with the dictates of reason 
and the promptings of affection. The Reprobationist, or 
Romanist, or the Deist, exiles God from his creation or 
the Redeemer from his Church ; the Socinian, blinder than 
the Mahomedan, finds a deliverer in any one but Jesus, 
finds illumination and the footprints of the Deity anywhere 
but in the Church of God. The principles of the Catho- 
lics alone have foundation in the Rock of Ages. 

The final manifestation of Satan is described under three 
titles, as to his political char actor, the wilful and fierce 
King and Antichrist. St. Paul, who regards him mainly 
in his spiritual character, also styles him by three titles— 
The Man of Sin— The Son of Perdition— The Wicked 
One. Now, from the hasty review just taken of the exist- 
ing systems of false religion, to which classification all 
religious errors may be reduced, we have seen how the 
super spiritualism of Oriental religion denies the person and 
providence of God the Father; how the idolism of cor- 
rupted Christianity, within the Church, denies the Son; 
while the intellectualism of the Arabian faith rejects the 
Holy Ghost. In the first is verified the designation of 
Man of Sin; in the rejection of Christ, the way of salva- 
tion, is fulfilled the sense of the title, Son of Perdition or 
destruction; while the wicked One is the proper descrip- 
tion of him who rejects and resists the Holy Ghost. Thus 
also St. J ohn tells us that the Enemy will have names of 
blasphemy, will assert himself to be the true God, and Sa- 
tan to be the God, and the synagogue of Satan to be the 



THE THREE FROGS. 



107 



Church of God. He will blaspheme God, his Son, and 
his Saints. Thus he will unite the three creeds of unre- 
generate mankind, and the eve of his advent will be 
marked by the rapid and wide diffusion of these princi- 
ples — unclean spirits that shall go forth to the kings of the 
earth, and of the whole world, to marshal them for the 
battle of the great day of God Almighty. 



CHAPTEE V. 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 

The Embodiment of the Antiehristian Idea. 

"Not this man, but Barabbas ; now Barabbas was a robber." — 
St. John xviii. 40. 

" Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God ? but thou 
shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee." — 
Ez. xxviii. 9. 

The two events in the Redeemer's history in which he 
is proposed as in a more especial way typifying his Church, 
are his suffering unto death and his resurrection. An ex- 
amination of the circumstances connected with those crises 
in his life, will illustrate, in some degree, the darker pas- 
sages of prophecy, where it deals with the final troubles 
and deliverance of the Redeemed. 

But, preliminary to this part of the subject, it will be 
necessary to review the statements and teaching of the 
New Testament respecting Satan. 

Our Lord's appearing was the revelation of the mystery 
of Godliness : the manifestation of God himself. That 
appearing was accompanied with wonderful operations 
wrought in the souls of men : Spirits came and went on 
messages of love between Earth and Heaven, and were 
thus made the messengers of God; manifold administra- 
tions attended the accomplishment of redemption, through 
the instrumentality of the Holy Ghost; and the spirit of 
10 



110 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 



tho human being came to be possessed by the Divine. A 
recognition of the deep things of God was elicited from 
the consciousness of man ; the harmony which, ere the 
beginning of sin existed between it and God, was restored ; 
the depths of man's whole moral being were opened up into 
their innermost recesses ; and the life of J esus the Saviour 
and the light of the God of all spirits, re-created and glo- 
rified the whole. 

At the period when all these spiritual workings for the 
emancipation of Man began, the mystery of iniquity, in- 
volving the manifestation of the incarnate Demon, the 
Apollyon, Son of Destruction, or the Destroyer, began also 
to display its distinctive principles. The Redeemer has 
designated the Enemy, not alone as Prince of the World ; 
but as its God. And, in keeping with this distinctive re- 
velation of the power of evil, is the record of its exercise 
furnished in the Gospels. As the Father had made his 
Spirits Angels, so Satan had made his Spirits Demons; 
they occupied and enslaved the human subject, seeming 
to strike down or absorb its personality. 

As the second Adam, the Redeemer submitted to the 
trial of his faithfulness; and though after exhausting every 
f 07in of temptation, (having assailed him, but in vain, 
through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 
pride of life, as he had originally tempted the first Adam,) 
Satan left our Lord, — it was but for a season ; for he re- 
turned in Gethsemane and on the Cross, to oppress the 
Anointed One in the hour of darkness, and to endeavor to 
win him from the work of redemption : Come down from 
the Cross and we will believe in thee. 

But described as the god of this world, the father of a 
wicked and adulterous generation, and like the Redeemer 
himself, withdrawn for a season from the human gaze, the 
power which he exercises he has committed to a special 



JESUS BARABBAS. Ill 

chief of the spirits, who is named only in the New Testa- 
ment, and the opinions respecting whoin, at that age, have 
received the sanction of the Lord himself. 

The Redeemer was accused by his people of doing mi- 
racles by Beelzebub, the Prince of the Demons, (as in our 
English Bible, wherever any other than Satan himself is 
spoken of, we should interpret Devils or Devil.) He cast 
out demons through his assistance ; and when it is remem- 
bered that he was charged with having a demon, it would 
seem that the Jews regarded him as possessed by the Chief 
Demon. The declaration of the Pharisees has all the ap- 
pearance of a formal ex cathedra decision, arrived at after 
eighteen months 7 experience of our Lord's teaching. And 
the manner in which our Lord replies to it, indicates that 
He understood them to mean that. He was then acting, in 
their judgment, as the incarnate presence of that Prince of 
the evil Spirits to whom Satan was held to have committed 
the charge of all his hosts. " If I by the finger of God/' — 
that is, If I the incarnate God, as we know our Lord to 
have been, — " cast out Demons, then is the kingdom of 
God come unto you." The same closeness of relationship 
would thus appear to exist between Satan and his agent, 
and the Father and Christ. 

The meaning of the appellation Beelzebul, is, Lord of 
the House, which gives a peculiar force to our Lord's 
remark, "If they call the owner of the house, Beelzebul, 
how much more his servants." — " How can one enter into 
a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except he first 
bind the strong man ? and then he will spoil his house." 
(Matt. xii. 29.) The very appellation of Lord of the House 
is descriptive of our Lord's relation to the Church, which 
is the House of God. The Apostle speaks of Christ as 
faithful, " As a son over his own house, whose are we." 
(Heb. iii. 6.) 



112 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 



The Antichrist will be the bodily manifestation of this 
Satanic nature — an incarnation of Beelzebul — the personal 
union of the Demon, the Angel from the abyss, (Rev. xi. 
11, ) and the human symbolized in the star. (Hey. ix. 1.) 
Hence, then, we infer what precisely was the blasphemy 
against the Son of Man ; it was not merely the denying 
him to be the Godman, but declaring him to be a Demon- 
man, They not only denied that he was the revelation of 
God, they further affirmed that he was a revelation of Sa- 
tan. The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost consists in 
maintaining the same opinion during the dispensation of 
the Comforter, or, in other words, declaring that the Spirit 
in the Church which reveals unto us the deep things of the 
Lord Jesus, is not the Spirit of God, but the spirit of de- 
lusion. And this very sin we find the malignant Jews 
guilty of when they gainsaid and blasphemed. (Acts xiii. 
45.) On account of this the mission of the Church was 
withdrawn from them, never to be restored. In the in- 
stance where our Lord forewarns them of this, he imme- 
diately changes all his method of teaching. He then first 
began, as much in mercy, we may believe, as in judgment, 
to keep back from the hearing of those who were not wil- 
ling to hear, the mysteries of the Kingdom. Thenceforth 
he taught in parables. From the incident, however, this 
much is gathered, that blasphemy, in that especial sense of 
the word in which it is employed by the Redeemer, implies 
the declaration of the presence of Satan, either through 
his chief agent or his Spirit. And hence the final mani- 
festation of the Antichrist is described as bearing names 
of blasphemy; that is, the Demon-man and the commu- 
nity under the influence of his Spirits will profess them- 
selves respectively the God-man and the Church of Christ. 

This was the great falsehood of the contemporaries of 
our Blessed Lord. They could not receive the truth, 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



113 



they were of their father the Devil, who was a liar from 
the beginning. And the lie propagated by him is that 
which the Most High will send them, a strong delusion to 
the end that they may believe. Having accused the real 
Christ of being this manifestation of the False One, they 
will at last believe the false one to be the true Messiah. 

Light is thus thrown on the term mystery, as applied to 
the influences of Antichrist. In the New Testament it is 
applied to that system of redemption through the Groclman 
which is revealed in the Gospel. And conflicting with 
this is the energetic mystery of iniquity ; that system of 
delusion which is to come to a head in the revelation of the 
Man of Sin making himself God, as the energy of the 
Spirit of Christ will work until the manifestation of the 
second man as the Lord from Heaven. 

Those that reject Christ's body, the Church, and its 
testimony respecting the Redeemer, reject Him; reject 
him on the same grounds and in the same way as he was 
rejected. But the rejection of the truth leads to the 
acceptance of the lie. The Godinan can only be renounced 
or rejected in order to the more devoted service of the 
incarnate Demon. Since the Christian Pentecost, the 
Church, animated by the Spirit sent from the Lord Jesus, 
has had to contend with the Spirit of the Antichrist, and 
many pereonal types and symbols of Antichrist ; thence- 
forth she awaits the revelation of the Lord from Heaven to 
deliver her from her agony. But, previous to that event, 
the Christian is taught to expect a revelation of that sin- 
gular individual who, by the tremendous fiction of a Di- 
vine authority and power, shall assert a universal dominion 
and a Divine personality; who shall claim to be — as Au- 
gustus was acknowledged — a present Deity. 

It has been already explained, in the previous pages, 
what provision already exists in the sphere of human life, 

10* 



ill 



JESUS BAR ABBAS. 



for the development and accomplishment, by Satan, of this 
great drama. Nor will it stand in any stead to allege in 
reply, the great unlikelihood of such a course of events 
ever taking place. Even the enlightened region of Euro- 
pean society, intelligence, and religion, has seen the most 
accomplished, and once not untruly styled, most Christian 
nation, dethrone the Grod of Heaven by a legal decree, and 
worship a degraded human being. Even at this day, a 
man of genius — the Bienzi of ecclesiastical Rome — covers 
himself with disgrace while he patiently hears himself ac- 
costed in the language of the Lord's Prayer. No profes- 
sion of zeal for religion, no moral or social illumination 
can, of itself, present a barrier to that tendency to self- 
deification, which is so inwoven with all the instincts of 
human nature, that even where the claim to God's honor 
is not made by, some are sure to be found eager to assert it 
for some favored chief. Thus it was in the golden age of 
Rome's universal dominion; Augustus — the head of gold, 
appears reluctantly disclaiming the perilous distinction, 
which bards and statesmen were so eager to bestow. 

The period of our Lord's ministry is identical with the 
term of unfulfilled prophecy, as variously expressed; 42 
months ; 1260 days ; or a time, times, and a dividing of 
times. A period sufficiently long for the introduction of 
events which have occupied the thoughts, and influenced 
the minds of men ever since. The whole period of the 
Church's existence, from the Pentecost to the consumma- 
tion, may be regarded as ideally repressnted by the period 
of our Lord's teaching. But the Redeemer has himself 
specified a time when there shall commence in his Church, 
a series of trials and sufferings which will bear to her con- 
tinued existence from the beginning, somewhat of the same 
kind of relation that his own days of public teaching bore 
to that unrecorded portion of his life which preceded his 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



115 



manifestation to Israel. The time here referred to, is 
spoken of at length in the kindred chapters, St. Matt, xxiv., 
St. Mark xiii., and St. Luke xxi. The notes of its com- 
mencement are : — 

The fullness of the Gentiles. 

The home gathering of the Jews. 

The Christian apostacy. 

The day and hour are not known to man, but the period 
generally may he thus approximately determined. Until 
these things come to pass the end will not be. 

For so was it with the Lord himself. His consummation 
(St. Luke xiii. 32,) as he describes his own sufferings, did 
not take place until he had fully preached the Gospel of 
the Kingdom to those whom he was sent unto. The 
commission given unto the twelve was, that they should 
preach him in J erusalem and Judea, in Samaria, and to the 
uttermost parts of the Earth. Similarly had his own course 
of preaching been conducted. First among his own people; 
then among the Samaritans ; and, finally and chiefly, he 
travelled through Galilee of the Gentiles, while at this 
time the mission of the twelve and seventy was limited to 
the house of Israel. 

Within this period of 1260 days, the two witnesses were 
slain, the Baptist and the Redeemer. Within that time, 
yet future for the Church, either she will herself, during 
her temporary obscuration, undergo some most singular 
persecution, in her two branches, which alone will then be 
found preserving the truth, and which two branches are 
historically prefigured in the Churches of Smyrna and 
Philadelphia ; or our Lord's return to judgment will be 
preceded by the reintroduction on the stage of this life of 
those two men who alone have been exempted from the 
lot of all men, and who will then undergo physical death ; 
Enoch, the witness in the days of Noah, and Elijah, the 



116 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



witness in the apostacy of Israel. The former, the witness 
for or against the Christian ; the latter, the witness for or 
against the Jewish election. 

I shall briefly examine the notes proposed, as indicating 
the beginning of the end. 

1. The fullness of the Gentiles. The Gospel shall be 
preached to all nations for a witness, and then cometh the 
end. The Gospel shall be preached to all those nations 
who are appointed to share in the election of Israel ; and 
it shall be preached for a witness against them, if they will 
not hear it and obey. When the mystical marriage chamber 
shall thus not only be furnished but filled with guests, 
whether they wear the marriage robe provided for them 
or not, then will come the end. 

In the great revival of missionary exertion which cha- 
racterizes the present age, the thoughtful Christian cannot 
but observe how near the Christian communion may be to 
the fulfilment of this note. How many nations are ap- 
pointed, and how extensive a course of instruction in the 
principles of Christ is designed for them, has not been de- 
clared. But as the twelve had not fulfilled their commis- 
sion when the Son of Man came to Zion for his final visit, 
so also we may believe it to be literally true, so far as- this 
note is concerned, that the Lord is at hand ; inasmuch as 
the Christian consciousness has received no revelation re- 
specting the numbers of the Gentile election, whether 
viewed in reference to individuals or nations ; and at this 
moment, the number may be full. The conviction of this 
uncertainty is one of the best correctives of a disposition 
for presumptuous speculations. 

2. The second note is the home-gathering of the Jeics. 
There is a general agreement now, that at some time or 
other the Jews will return to their beloved land; and, as 
already intimated, they will return unconverted. The 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 



117 



sympathies of the converted Israelite are with the Church 
Catholic. He looks for his Lord to come to him. Those 
frequent Scriptures which speak of the return to Zion of 
Israel and Judah need not be quoted ; the feelings of the 
Jews are well known, as is likewise the almost utter in- 
ability of the Church to convert them. If the efforts that 
have been made have been at all successful, the harvest 
has been small ? and if the cost be the measure of the 
labor, great indeed has been the toil. But for the Jews, 
as a nation, the Christian must devoutly submit himself to 
the determinations of the Holy Spirit; blindness has hap- 
pened unto Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be 
brought in. Then will the Deliverer come forth — come 
forth out of Zion ; and there, where the erring spouse was 
repudiated, will the Lord receive the repentant one to 
himself with dear forgiveness. 

If the precise moment, the day and hour of the accom- 
plishment of the previous note, be known to God alone, 
the same is scarcely less true of this. The rapid means of 
transit, and of conveying intelligence which characterize 
this generation, in a season of some strong overmastering 
delusion, might " be employed in suddenly completing this 
prediction; and while apostate Christians are travelling 
westwards, to meet Christ in the valley of the Salt Lake, 
convey the Jews back to the heights of Jerusalem. 

3. The last note in the order of time, is the apostacy. 

In the well-known passage (2 Thess. ii. 1,) the Church 
has been taught to look for a considerable departure from 
the faith, immediately previous to the second advent; ah 
apostacy predicted in a somewhat different way by St. 
John, under the symbol of the Harlot, which, in Scrip- 
tural use represents spiritual infidelity. The terms of the 
Pauline prediction would lead us to believe that the apos- 
tacy is to be sudden, and marked through all the branches 



118 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 



of the Christian Church, and to be characterized as a de- 
parture from social and political order, (the leader of it is 
the laioless one — the true import of what is rendered " the 
wicked one/') as much as from true religion. An exten- 
sive apostacy already exists — has existed all along; but 
the text describes not that departure only from Christ 
which is secret in the heart, and often it may be concealed 
from the heart of each; nor, again, that apostacy only 
which is intellectual; but that deliberate and visible rejec- 
tion of the Christian profession, which is inevitable for 
those who desire to adopt or maintain an antagonist creed. 
The apostacy from our Redeemer of the whole Jewish na- 
tion, at the time of his crucifixion, fully illustrates the 
future history of the Church in this particular. The Jew- 
ish Church, moved by religious prejudices as much as by 
temporal inducements, denied the Lord; and, in renounc- 
ing him, renounced their own faith ; and, for the preserva- 
tion of their own corrupt traditions, murdered the Prince 
of Life. 

At the present time those elements of thought and 
feeling in so called religious society both within and with- 
out the Church, friendly to this apostate condition, are 
very manifest. The abhorrence of historical and objective 
Christianity, the rancorous hatred of a visible body and 
presence — through it — of Christ in the world, and the 
degradation to which Sacraments and Scriptures have been 
subjected, as well by those who profess as by those who 
reject Christ, these are signs to prepare men for a great 
and significant revolution. Multitudes must be forsaking 
the faith, if it be true that the numbers of dissenting 
Christians are decreasing, while no corresponding increase 
is perceptible in the numbers of the Church. And who 
shall number those who are offered Christianity and re- 
ject it ? 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 



119 



Beside the occasional notices of the general demoraliza- 
tion in the last days, scattered through the Bible, there 
occurs a very special description of the dogmatic errors in 
1 Tim. iv. 1 — 3. " Some shall depart (apostatize) from the 
faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of 
devils " i. e. doctrines propounded by demons. A little 
further on we shall find the Prophet of the New Testament 
describing to what this teaching will guide its disciples. 
But St. Paul instructs us as to two important articles 
enforced in the demon creed of these apostates ; the inter- 
diction of wedlock, and the discipline of a physical puri- 
tanism involved in the abstinence from meats. 

The corruption of the marriage bond has ever been 
attempted by Satan ; and to the Church considerable in- 
jury has been done by the practice of asceticism. We can 
hardly be at a loss to understand the full import of the 
words of the Prophet just quoted, if we bear in mind the 
spiritual condition, elsewhere foreshown to us, of the times 
he speaks of. In the resurrection they neither marry nor 
are given in marriage, says the Redeemer. They are like 
the Angels. In the time of Antichrist this distinguishing 
feature of the epoch of Christ's second advent, will be 
counterfeited, and the universal violation of the natural 
affections will become a religious symbol. Consequent 
upon this affectation of a supernatural condition — instances 
of which have not unfrequently occurred already in society 
— will be the use of a supernatural diet. The abstinence 
from wedlock, and what is involved in this, — intercourse 
between the sexes — is foretold as universally enforced; 
equally universal, we must conclude, will be the abstinence 
from all food, as well animal as vegetable, — all human 
food, and the use instead of food like Angels' food, (Psalm 
lxxviii. 25,) supplied, it may be, directly by the impostor 
himself, who will thus be the life and bread of life of his 



120 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



own deceived and apostate generation. The exhortation 
of St. John is, that we should try the spirits. Unfortu- 
nately for the Church, the import and urgency of this ad- 
vice has been lost to us by the utter failure of all belief in 
the existence of Spirits, as active antagonists to Christian- 
ity. But those only who are ignorant of Scripture can be 
ignorant of the fact that the New Testament discounte- 
nances in every way the popular belief, that there has been 
a cessation in the sphere of human life of malignant Spi- 
ritual powers; and those only who are ignorant of Satan's 
methods and devices, can fail to account for the fact, that 
in the present teaching of the Church little or no notice is 
taken of the influence of Demons. 

So far as these notes themselves are concerned, no time 
is indicated, and little time is required for their fulfilment; 
hence, as all of them may be accomplished in a short time, 
it is literally true that the Lord is at hand ; and that these 
things must shortly come to pass. Nor can a further proof 
be needed of how practical and how useful, for the pur- 
pose of maintaining Christian attention, is the study of 
prophecy. Blessed are they who so look for the consola- 
tion, for He shall come, and suddenly. Blessed are they 
who thus love his appearing. 

Agreed upon this point, the belief of the imminency of 
the Lord's second advent, and the necessity for a Christian 
loving his appearance, there is no practical difference be- 
tween the praeterist and the futurist ; and it is greatly to 
be regretted that the different modes of prophetical specu- 
lation should cause the interruption or violation of the love 
of Christ. With what justice can the imputation of Po- 
pish leanings be made against a writer who, while he sees 
the apostacy in a great degree manifested in the Church of 
Borne, does not see in the Pope either the Man of Sin or 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



121 



the Antichrist? It is the imputation, in fact, which is 
Popish. 

The fulfilment of each of these three notes, synchro- 
nizes with the manifestation of each of the three propheti- 
cal creatures ; of each of the horses, and the several parts 
of the image. Thus — 

1. The period of the fullness of the Gentiles, when the 
number of that election will be completed, and the guilt of 
the Gentiles shall be full, will be marked by the organi- 
zation of the several Hamatic kingdoms who reject Christ, 
into a deliberate opposition to him. This period is pro- 
phetically designated by the rise of the head, by the rise 
of the first beast, and the charge of the first horse : the 
resuscitation of oriental dominion — " the rumors of wars." 
(St. Matt. xxiv. 6.) 

2. The home gathering of the Jews will notify the re- 
appearance of the silver breast and arms, — the rise of the 
second wild-beast or bear, — the charge of the second horse, 
with its sword-bearing rider. The political and commercial 
restoration of Jerusalem, consequent on the return of 
Israel and Judah, will be accompanied by the like restora- 
tion of Rome. " Then said he unto them, nation shall 
rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom." (St. 
Luke xxi. 10.) 

3. The Christian apostacy, accomplished in the Church 
of Home, and exhibited in the city of Rome, renewed in 
its old imperial glory, will mark the rise of " the belly and 
thighs of brass," — the third wild-beast, a leopard, — and 
the charge of the third yoke-bearing horse. The Maho- 
metan system, political and religious, will have a great re- 
vival, consequent on the withdrawal, through the apostacy, 
of that Divine truth and presence which hitherto have 
letted it. Then shall be the moral and literal famine pre- 
dicted by the cherubic teacher (Rev. vi. 6,) " a measure of 

11 



122 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 



wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a 
penny. " " Great earthquakes shall be in divers places, 
and famines and pestilences, and fearful sights and great 
signs shall there be from heaven." (St. Luke xxi. 2.) 
" All these are the beginning of sorrows." 

4. Finally, the development of the legs and feet of the 
dream image, — the rise of the fourth beast of Daniel, — 
the charge of the fourth horse of St. John, ridden by the 
great impersonation of Satanic power, — and the emerging 
from the sea of the whole complex body of the Evil One, 
(as depicted Rev. xiii. 1,) — all these are identical with the 
presence where it ought not to be, the Epiphany of the 
Abomination of Desolation, with his false anointed ones, 
and false miracle-working prophets. 

Then shall they see the Son of Man, and the sign of the 
Son of Man coming in the clouds, with great power and 
glory. 

It was stated, at the beginning, that two events in the 
Lord's life were, to some extent, prophetical descriptions 
of the great crises of his Church : the Crucifixion and the 
Resurrection. 

I shall consider these separately ; and, first, the Cruci- 
fixion. 

The presence of our Redeemer, in Jerusalem, at the 
period of that fatal Passover when he suffered, was the 
signal for the conspiracy which ended in his Death and 
Passion. The main instruments in accomplishing this, 
were Judas, Caiaphas, the people, and the Romans ; each 
a symbol of a distinct and permanent Antichristian influ- 
ence. 

(1.) Judas in truth represents not alone the infidel Ju- 
daizing section of the human race, prepared to sell such 
portions of the Church as may come under its control, as 



JESTTS BARABBAe. 



123 



tatter tte class of disciples, who, separating from the Body 
of Christ, come, from the circumstance of their unsheltered 
and assailable position, more directly under the corrupting 
influences of the Antichristian world. The willingness 
with which such bodies do still fraternize with those who 
deny the Redeemer, with political fanatics and desperates, 
is well known to all who watch impartially the course of 
public events. That Judas, in selling his Lord and Master, 
was influenced by some professedly kind or spiritual pur- 
pose, the apparent goodness of which deluded himself, is 
not improbable ; but the proceedings of those who appear 
to be prefigured in Iscariot, betray motives, which, if to 
themselves they appear spiritual and stainless, as certainly 
appear to others exclusively political. That in a great crisis 
of the Church such bodies, which now with some show of 
sincerity profess to follow the Lamb, should then be found 
wanting, — should then be seen, in the moment of the 
Church's agony, kissing her to betray her, invoking the 
powers of the world to fetter and coerce her, — our own 
historical experiences would lead us to expect. The history 
of Arianism, moreover, which is in a great measure the 
history of separation, in every age of the Church, furnishes 
an ample illustration of the position here affirmed. God 
forbid that I should wound the heart of any pious sepa- 
ratist, by thus avowing my conviction as to the probable 
future history, and position in the final crisis, of separate 
communions, as such. I only speak of them as the voice 
of the passing as well as the past hour reports of them. 
Do not the most orthodox among them pledge themselves 
in sacred form to extirpate that Christianity which main- 
tains a threefold Apostolic ministry ? Would they not 
unite with any influential body to root out the Holy 
Catholic Church of Ireland — the only existing barrier in 
that afflicted land against the blasphemy of Mecca in the 



124 



JESUS BAR ABBAS. 



north, and the superstitions of Home throughout it ? What 
land have they not afflicted with false doctrine ; or made 
intolerable by tumult and division ? At present, but for 
certain political efforts among themselves, they are compa- 
ratively harmless; but the ministerial life of the unhappy 
Betrayer was not all darkness ; he wrought miracles, and 
named with power the name of Immannel ; the fallen and 
the dead were raised by him, until he himself through 
temptation fell away, and perished. 

Sects must be regarded as on this account dangerous to 
the welfare of the Church. The storms of persecution 
which will arise in the latter days, will only scatter them 
away from that visible body they love so little ; and the 
refluent waves will then bear them back to dash against 
it, and if possible, to sink it. Whatever amount of good 
they may be supposed to do now, will be no shield against 
the trials that await them. Their only visible shelter 
they reject. They do not profess to love the Church : far 
otherwise : and history has no record of their having done 
it any direct service. 

While therefore the disciples generally may be regarded 
as representing unincorporated believers, the traitor em- 
blems more particularly the political inficlelizing class. 

(2.) Betrayed by a false disciple, the Lord was de- 
nounced as an impostor by a false ruler, who, by a symbolic 
action in the moment of his injustice, denoted the destruc- 
tion of that hieratical order of which he was the chief. 
The Church's testimony respecting Jesus, is the same as 
was his own ; and he has taught us, that the world will 
receive it in a similar way. Caiaphas repudiated the notion 
that man could be God ; and for the assertion of this final 
truth, condemned the prisoner to death. 

There is now ruling over a great portion of God's 
heritage, one who claims exclusively for himself the high- 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 125 

priesthood of the Church of Christ; one who arrogates all 
the powers and more than all the powers of Peter. Cephas 
is but another form of Caiaphas ; but the forms so little 
differ en t, indicate the true and the false foundation. As 
the Chief Bishop in the Church of Moses in denouncing 
the Lord renounced all the hopes of the election of Israel, 
so will the Chief Bishop in the Church of Christ — a false 
Cephas — persuade the world to crucify the Body of the 
Lord Jesus, and for a false forsake the true and lively stone 
elect and precious. Now there can be no doubt as to who 
is the Chief Bishop, — -the first among equals, the first in 
consideration of temporal position and worldly accidents, 
not of Divine power or authority, — in the Church of Christ. 
How long the Bishop of Rome has subjected himself to the 
imputation and charge of being an Antichrist and a Man 
of Sin, is more easily determined than the precise period 
when the assumptions of the Italian throne, or title of 
Universal Bishop, made that imputation and charge in 
some respects just. (*) From his position, indeed, he is 
subjected to much the same influence as was Caiaphas. 
The terror of the Romans, and solicitude for temporal dig- 
nity and position, it may be supposed will have in a great 
degree, on a future momentous occasion, the same effect 
which already more than once in the history of the Pope- 
dom, they are known to have produced. In purer days 
the authority and influence of the Bishop of Rome, armed 
nation against nation, and controlled all Europe. That 
communion, bound more powerfully now than ever to his 
individual decree, must prosper and fall with him. A great 
power will coerce it, and make it violate its most cherished 
traditions, and most favorite principles. This has taken 
place already. Utterly blinded to the hope and prospect 
of the Lord's Return, the Pontiff, by a course of spiritual 
debauchery, has brought upon himself and entailed upon 

11* 



126 



JESUS BAR ABBAS 



his successors sucli feebleness, delirium, and blindness, as 
will at last incapacitate theni for tbe task of detecting tbe 
false Christ, and resisting hirn. The descendant of the 
true Cephas will, like the false, accept the Antimessias ; 
and separating himself from the communion of the Church, 
will pass over to present homage and glory, and to exalt 
the being who will then and thus become manifest to the 
world ; and who, whether present previously; unrecognized 
in the world, or then only introduced, will thus be throned 
above the God of Gods, and will be worshipped as the 
Lord Jesus, in Zion, and in the Church. 

(8.) I need offer no remark upon the sympathies which 
existed between Caiaphas and Judas; or upon those which 
do exist between what they symbolize, superstition and 
infidelity. I pass on to consider the third and fourth in- 
struments in our Lord's condemnation — the people and the 
Romans, The once true teacher become the false prophet, 
will enlist in the service of the Antichrist those whom he 
can command. Thus, as the Jewish Church became the 
synagogue of Satan, so will the Church in its Eoman 
portion, through the influence of its leader and guide, 
accept the worship of the Enemy, and believe the lie, 
while the remnant of the seed will be subjected to a 
searching and terrible persecution. The recompense for 
this temper of servility and compromise will doubtless be 
the same, but in a proportionably greater degree, as that 
which she received from Titus and Napoleon. 

The power of the Church of Rome over the masses, is 
as notorious as her desire to promote the interests of any 
power, it matters not how disposed towards the religion 
of J esus. France furnishes continual illustration of this ; 
nor could any creed be too extravagant or too repugnant 
to human feelings, for the Roman Bishop to impose, or 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



127 



his spiritual subjects over the world to receive ; if our 
experiences of both are to be regarded as instr active. 

In such a manner will the Christian society be prepared 
for the advent of Him who will appear for its trial for the 
short time appointed. But in a similar way the Jewish 
race reassembled in Zion will be circumstanced. Their 
persecution of the Church is pictured to us in the perse- 
cution of Stephen ; their conversion, in the conversion of 
Paul. That there should be found among them then an 
orthodox Christianizing class, a political, and lastly, an 
infidelizing class, as at the time of the Roman siege, is 
every way probable. The false Messias would be accepted 
by the two latter classes ; and the withdrawal from this 
unholy alliance of the Christianizing body, would of course 
subject them to persecution, — to all but extermination. 
Thus the course of prophecy will be fulfilled among the 
literal and the spiritual election. It should be born in 
mind, as already stated, that as Christ came peculiarly to 
the Jews, so will the dreadful impostor practise mainly 
and primarily upon them. 

The period of this persecution, and the duration of Anti- 
christ manifested, has been fixed by Daniel with consider- 
able distinctness, as a week, or seven, of years, (ix. 27.) 
The time of Christ, from the beginning of his ministry 
to the proclamation of the Gospel to the Gentiles, accord- 
ing to the ordinary chronological notices of the authorized 
version, occupied seven years. At the middle of that 
period, i. e. after the expiration of three years and a half, 
— 42 months, — 1260 days, — God repealed the ordinances 
of the daily service ; while our Lord's teaching during that 
time in the most solemn manner confirmed the covenant, 
and made the law glorious. In those seven years, the 
Christian Mission to Judsca, Samaria, and the Gentile 
world, was fulfilled. 



128 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



The time of Antichrist, which is short as the time 
of Christ, according to Daniel occupies a seven of years. 
During the first half of that period he may not be recog- 
nized in his real character, even as the Redeemer was not ; 
but he will subject the Christian race at its commencement, 
and the Jewish race at its close, to unexampled trials, until 
he shall have succeeded in enthroning himself as Jesus in 
the Christian, and as Messias in the Jewish Church. 

The period of that fiery trial, shortened mercifully for 
the elect's sake, is the same as the personal ministry of 
Christ, — half of a seven of years — 1260 days — 42 mcnths: 
a time, times, and a dividing of times. (Rev. xii. 14.) 

Hence the Christian can account for the two distinct 
aspects under which the Antimessias is presented in the 
Scriptures : the Pauline and the Johannine. Under the 
former, as Man of Sin, corresponding to the designation of 
the Lord as Son of Man, in his Gentile mission, he will 
appear in the Gentile world, and in the Gentile Church. 
In the Johannine Apocalypse, the mission to Israel is 
chiefly kept in view. And hence, in the writings of the 
beloved disciple, he appears under the Jewish designation 
of Antichrist : a designation which furthermore points to 
his spiritual or demon nature, as the former — Man of Sin — 
does to his human. The exigencies of modern systems of 
interpretation have constrained expositors to regard these 
inspired writers as speaking of two different individuals — 
Paul of the Roman Pontiff, and John of the future Enemy. 
Such a distinction, however, was unknown to the ancients, 
and has not been accepted by our greatest teachers. The 
Roman Bishop will always be a worshipper; nor isjt con- 
ceivable how one so sunk in the bondage of superstition, 
could raise himself above himself so far as to arrogate and 
exercise in his own behalf the powers of Deity. And, 
further, if, as is conceded, he cannot be the Antichrist, 



JESUS EAR ABB AS. 



129 



because he does not realize the Johannine description of 
that person, by denying the Father and the Son, a fortiori 
he cannot be the Man of Sin, who is described as denying 
the Father and the Son, and that Christ is come in the 
flesh, and as claiming to be himself the sole object of 
worship in the Christian Church. 

If one of these persons be an individual, and not the 
representative of a class or succession, it seems quite arbi- 
trary to make the other such a representative ; to regard 
the Man of Sin as the symbol which exhibits the falsely 
teaching Pontiffs of Italy, and yet understand the Anti- 
christ, the fierce King, or the wilful King, as the one and 
unique personage of the prophetic volume. They are both 
symbols, or neither. The part of this arbitrary exegesis 
which explains the Man of Sin to be the Popes in their 
succession from a certain historical point, which it seems 
impossible to determine satisfactorily, is based upon the 
assumption that the letting person or withholding poiver is 
the succession of Eoman Emperors, and the Eoman Empire. 
But the familiar custom with St. Paul of suppressing the 
name of the Lord or his Spirit, while engaged, it may be, 
in the more earnest mental contemplation of him, — as in 
such passages, " I know in whom I have believed," 
(2 Tim. i. 12, and compare Acts xxii. 17 — 21,) clears 
away any doubt that the Lord and his Spirit are the 
subjects of the Apostle's allusion. 

And how will the Enemy appear ? 

Those who err, not knowing the Scriptures, those who 
reject the Church and Christ — the infidelizer and the Jew, 
will each, in a different manner and degree, be exposed to 
the machinations of the Enemy. 

1. To the Christian who falsely loves or falsely worships 
Christ, he will doubtless appear with the stigmata of 



130 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 



Christ, already so often assumed by impostors* Hence 
St. J ohn describes him ( 3 ) — 

" I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death, 
and his deadly wound was healed ) and all the world won- 
dered after the beast." 

It is deserving of attention, that the name of the mur- 
derer, for whom the people rejected the Saviour, and the 
Saviour's name, are identical. Jesus Barabbas, i. e. the 
Son of the Father ; and Jesus, the Son whom the Father 
sent, who is called Christ. ( 3 ) Thus it is not improbable, 
that for the more successful seduction of professing Chris- 
tians, the Enemy may again assume the very name of the 
Lord Jesus. The letters which represent the number of 
his name, or force, may also be the initials of his personal 
designation, or the Satanic monogram, XI §5. Two of these 
are the initials of the Redeemer's name, X — Christ, 
I = Jesus. The third, the sign of the serpent, takes the 
place of the "J" or sign of the cross. 

On the other hand, the letters PM A = 144,000, which 
attend the Lamb, are the initial letters of Pvoj.isvo^^Re- 
deemer, M, Messias, a D, Son of David. The first of 
these three terms is especially given to Christ with re- 
ference to his return to Zion, by St. Paul. (Horn. xi. 26.) 
I need scarcely remind the reader of the fact, that the 
Roman standards bore the initials of the power to which 
they belonged. 

Another attendant sign, especially mentioned by St. John 
as that which will be most calculated to impose upon the 
Christian election, is fire from heaven. We are instructed 
by St. Paul that the Lord will appear from heaven in fire. 
Christians, sincere or insincere, have been taught to expect 
this sign of the Son of Man. And for the purposes of de- 
lusion, a similar manifestation of superhuman power will 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



131 



be put forth by the Enemy,— " he maketh fire to come 
down from heaven on the earth, in the sight of men." 
(Rev. xiii. 13.) 

2. For the infidel class of men, who worship nature and 
the powers of nature,— who, perishing through the de- 
ceivableness of unrighteousness, receive not the love of the 
truth, that they might be saved,— for such there is waiting 
that strong delusion which will constrain them to believe 
and accept those powers and wonders which the Deceiver 
will exhibit and perform for the propagation of the lie, — 
the lie being that he is the great power of Grod. We are 
not to conceive of these miracles as fictitious or unreal ; 
but as the results following from the veritable operations 
of supernatural causes. (2 Thess. ii. 9, 10, 11.) To that 
body who, unless they see signs and wonders, will not be- 
lieve, the Enemy will appear, accompanied with signs and 
wonders. Amid the disorders of physical nature, and the 
distress, perplexity, and conflict of nations, man infidel will 
see signs in the heaven and on earth ; blood, and fire, and 
vapor of smoke ; the mimic glory and clouds which will 
attend the apocalypse of the Son of Perdition. 

3. There is one other class, the Jews, the relations 
between whom and Antichrist, remain to be considered. 
Against them he will more especially come. The circum- 
stances of the unenlightened heathen] who will unwittingly 
join his standard, need no particular notice; their course 
will have been adopted while they were in ignorance ; and 
it is of such that the promise is written, " And it shall 
come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations 
shall .... worship the King, the Lord of Hosts. " 

I am to consider then here, the sign under which Anti- 
christ will appear to the Jews. 

The sign which they required of the Son of Man, and 
which was denied to the Jews of that age, though so fre- 



132 



JESUS BAR ABBAS. 



quently demanded, was a certain sign from heaven. Our 
Lord informs them, that they should have, instead, a sign 
from earth only; though, on the occasion of his final ad- 
dress to the Apostles, (St. Matt. xxiv. 80), and of his 
trial, (St. Matt. xxvi. 64), he informs his hearers that they 
would be permitted at a future crisis to behold the wonder 
they desired. Our Lord's designation of himself as Son 
of Man, must have associated him in the minds of his au- 
dience, often including Scribes and Doctors of the Law, 
with that person so denominated by the prophet Daniel, 
from whose writings our Lord probably appropriated to 
himself this title. Now in that passage mention is made 
of a very remarkable sign in heaven, which, with great 
reason, the Jews expected to be displayed by the Messiah ; 
but they were justly censured and punished for their in- 
credulity, when after the resurrection, they withheld their 
belief from one who explained to them so faithfully the 
order and time of the Divine phenomena. 
What was this sign ? 

Truly a wonderful one ; a visible manifestation of 
the Most Holy Trinity. 

In the visions of the night, during which the power of 
Antichrist is completed, Daniel " saw, (vii. 13, 14,) and 
behold one like the Son of Man; the Son of Man came 
with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of 
Days, and they brought him near before him ; and there 
was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom — 
[possessed by the saints of the Most High, v. 18,] which 
shall not be destroyed." 

Here the greatly beloved one was permitted to behold 
the revealed presence of the Father, as the Ancient of 
Days, — the Son, as the Son of Man, — and the Holy Spirit, 
as acting in and through the saints of the Most High, the 
Church of all people, nations, and languages. 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 



133 



In the preceding pages reference has been made more 
than once to the fictitious Trinities believed in by heretics 
or heathen teachers. The rejection of the true leads to 
the acceptance of-the false. The beloved disciple was per- 
mitted to witness the Satanic counterfeit of this amazing 
apocalypse. 

St. John saw (Rev. xiii. 1, 2,4, 6, 11, 12,13,) « a beast 
rise up, having names of blasphemy ; and the dragon gave 
him his power, and his seat, and great authority ; and they 
worshipped the dragon ; and they worshipped the beast ; 
and he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to 
blaspheme his name, (i. e. the Father,) and his tabernacle, 
{i.e. the Son : compare marg. ref.), and them that dwell in 
heaven, (the Church of God, or manifestation of the Holy 
Spirit.)" It appears to me that the blasphemy will consist 
in claiming for Satan, himself and his synagogue, the 
adoration and worship due only to the Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit. As the Jews rejected the true Teacher and 
a true Church ; so will a false teacher — or an apostate 
teacher and apostate Church — spread abroad among man- 
kind the principles of Satan and the Incarnate Demon. 
The false teacher will still preserve the appearance of the 
true : like a lamb, wearing the episcopal emblem, ( 4 ) but 
acting as the servant of the dragon. Christ did the works 
of the Father ; and the promise of the Redeemer to his 
Church was, that the works which he did, and greater, 
should be performed by his followers. A similar power 
and authority is delegated by Satan to the first beast, and 
by this person, the Incarnate Demon, to his Church. " He 
exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and 
causeth the earth, and them which dwell therein, to wor- 
ship the first beast y whose deadly wound was healed. And 
he doeth great wonders, — and deceiveth them that dwell 
on the earth, by the means of those miracles which he had 
12 



184 JESUS B Alt ABBAS. 

power to do in the sight of the beast :" and as the Incar- 
nate Demon will not at the same time be visible to all his 
worshippers,— the false teacher will teach " them that dwell 
on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast. 
And he had power to give life [breath] unto the image of 
the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, 
and cause that as many as would not worship the image of 
the beast should be killed/ ' 

Aaron was a true prophet, but seduced by the people. 
Here the people will be seduced by a prophet who is an 
apostate. But who is he, who, though not yet apostate, 
makes himself responsible for all the false teaching of his 
own and other communions ? Who is he that even now is 
disciplining himself for the act of sin, by consecrating 
images, and sanctifying idolatry ?( 5 ) 

- But whence, it may be asked, and when, will this apo- 
calypse take place, and wherefore the delay ? 

The second and third of these inquiries are easily an- 
swered. Until the apostacy, — -which will be preceded by 
the universal preaching of the G-ospel, and the home- 
gathering of the tribes, — takes place, the Incarnate Demon 
will not be revealed. Then the apostate Prophet or Church 
will be to him what the Baptist was to J esus ; what Elias 
will be to the returning Saviour; commissioned to proclaim 
and make him known to the world. The Church of Borne 
indeed is now a harlot, guilty of spiritual uncleanness ; 
but not until some eminent political personage shall arise, 
whom she shall address, and, as she does now the images 
of the blessed Virgin Mary, religiously regard, she cannot 
be considered guilty of blasphemy. When she will thus 
act, she will herself take out of the way the impediment, 
(that which letteth,) to the manifestation of Antichrist. 
The proceedings on her part will doubtless be attended with 
a violation of all social, religious, and political order, over 



JESUS BAR ABB AS 



135 



the whole world ; and thus she will indicate the beginning 
of the 1260 days, and the moment of her own visitation. 
But, though not manifested, the Enemy may even now be 
on earth. To the pre-apocalyptic period of his existence 
we may perhaps be justified in looking for the fulfilment of 
those portions of the apocalypse of J ohn and Daniel, (in 
the latter, viii. 23—26. and xi. 5—29,) which, however 
applicable to events either long past or now present, have 
neither been received by the Church as fulfilled, nor can 
be appealed to as evidences and proofs of the truth of Re- 
velation. To take an illustration of the probable rise and 
progress of such a person : Had the designs of Napoleon 
on the East been crowned with success,— had he been per- 
mitted to subject and attach to himself the Semitic and 
Hamitic races of Asia and Africa, — had he thus, himself 
reputedly of Greek origin, united under his own sceptre 
the hereditary powers and dominions of the three fami- 
lies, — -had he, in the progress of these successes, been ac- 
knowledged by the Church of Rome as her Saviour, and 
had he been crowned as the Universal King by the hands 
of her Bishop, — had he, while professing the creed of 
Mahomet, which he did approve, succeeded while acting as 
their benefactor, in imposing himself upon the Jews, re- 
turned to Jerusalem, as the Messias,( 6 ) (in Europe he was 
almost so regarded by them,) — had he, while thus wor- 
shipped and powerful, with his notorious bad faith, organ- 
ized in the two strongholds of his influence, Rome and 
Jerusalem, a bitter persecution against the faithful rem- 
nant of the Church and Synagogue, justifying his treachery 
by regarding faith as treason, — had this all so fallen out, 
as it was apparently very near doing, the thoughtful Chris- 
tian would have had the strongest reason to regard so por- 
tentous a personage as the Antimessias, and to expect and 



136 



JESUS BAR ABB AS, 



pray more than ever for the immediate presence of the 
Saviour. 

As Napoleon owed his manifestation to the apostacy of 
France from all established order, social and religious,- — 
so will the Antichrist owe his to the apostacy of the world. 

But, many as are the Antichrists within the limits of 
Europe or the Church, it is from the East, whence we 
expect the Lord, that the Impostor will come.- As Pharaoh 
prepared a place for the people, who were to dwell alone 
in Goshen, a land of pasture beyond the Nile; so did 
Shalmanezer, by previously depopulating it, prepare in 
Gozan a land of pasture beyond Euphrates for the ten 
tribes. There they exist to this day; some portion of 
them Christians ; presided over by their numerous kings, 
as they style their chiefs. 

Now, whether, as the ancients believed, the Impostor 
will arise out of the tribe of Dan, —or whether, as is not 
unlikely, he will make his way from Europe or else- 
where, for the purpose of having his cause espoused and 
strengthened by the allegiance given to him by the infidel 
portion of these scattered Israelites, appearing to them as 
a star from heaven, (Eev. xi.), — however this may be, — 
there seems little reason to doubt that from the East he 
will come to us, attended by the ten kingdomless Kings., 
a maleh of each of the lost tribes: thus he too asserting 
the title, King of Kings ; it may be also accompanied by 
an election from each tribe to the number of 616, as the 
Redeemer will appear with 144,000. The familiar miracle 
of the drying up of the stream will probably be to the 
heathen and to the Israelites returning to Zion, a fatal in- 
ducement to acknowledge him as the Anointed. That 
event is described (Rev. xvi. 12,) as immediately succeeded 
by a rapid diffusion of miraculous powers, the organizing 
of all the people of the earth in rebellion against God, and 



JESUS BAR ABBAS. 137 

the overthrow of her, the chief worker of these harms, — 
not till now full of names of blasphemy, — not till now 
marked with the word mystery, — now, through the perse- 
cuting power of Antichrist, drunken with the blood of the 
saints, and by a righteous retribution made desolate by the 
Israelite Kings, and with the city where she dwells — satis- 
faction for the victories of Titus — given to the lost sons of 
Jacob to be destroyed. 

There is one event remaining to be considered in the 
prophetic history of Antichrist, necessarily subsequent to 
that just noticed, because it is that which is connected im- 
mediately with his destruction — the Siege of Jerusalem. 
The cause of the fury of Antichrist against Zion may per- 
haps be found in the growing enlightenment of the gathered 
tribes. Doubtless many of them will return repentant; 
many converted ; through persons representing the zeal of 
Enoch or Elias, and the wisdom of Moses ; if we are not 
to understand the appearance ajnong them personally of 
those illustrious teachers. True faith, as always, will be 
regarded as treason. Its holy efforts, notwithstanding 
some treachery in their own numbers, will, in some mea- 
sure, be successful, until at last the Enemy will invest the 
city, — and in the hour of terrible agony, the Deliverer will 
come out of Zion, and turn away iniquity from Jacob; 
and in the moment of renewed woe, captivity, and death, 
he will appear, taking vengeance on the enemies of his 
redeemed. 

Hear the Prophets. 

He [Antichrist] shall even return, and have intelligence 
with them that forsake the holy covenant. And arms shall 
stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of 
strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they 
shall place the abomination that maketh desolate. And 
such as do wickedly against the covenant, shall he corrupt 

12* 



13s 



JESUS BAR ABBAS, 



by flatteries; but the people that do know their God shall 
be strong, and do exploits. And they that understand 
among the people shall instruct many; yet they shall fall 
by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil 
[many] days. And some of them of understanding shall 
fall to try them, and to purge and to make them white, 
even to the time of the end ; because it is yet for a time 
appointed. And the King shall do according -to his will ; 
and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above 
every God, and shall speak marvellous things against the 
God of Gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be ac- 
complished. And he shall place the tabernacles of his 
palace between the seas, in the glorious holy mountain; 
yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him. 
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince 
which standeth for the children of the people : and there 
shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there 
was a nation even to that same time : and at that time the 
people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found 
written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the 
dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and 
some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Dan. xi. 80, 81, 
32, 33, 35, 36, 45, xii. 1, 2.) 

The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the 
Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, — Behold, I will 
make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people 
round about, when they shall be in the siege both against 
Judah and against Jerusalem. In that day will I make 
Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people : all that bur- 
den themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the 
people of the earth be gathered together against it. In 
that day, saith the Lord, I will smite every horse with 
astonishment, and his rider with madness : and I will 
open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



139 



every horse of the people with blindness. And the goven- 
ors of Judah shall say in their heart, the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem shall be my strength, in the Lord of Hosts, their 
God. In that day will I make the governors of Judah 
like a hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of 
fire in a sheaf ; and they shall devour all the people round 
about, on the right hand and on the left : and Jerusalem 
shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusa- 
lem. The Lord also shall save the tents of Judah first, 
that the glory of the house of David, and the glory of the 
inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against 
Judah. In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants 
of J erusalem ; and he that is feeble among them at that 
day shall be as David ; and the house of David shall be as 
G-od, as the Angel of the Lord before them. And it shall 
come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the 
nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour 
upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Je- 
rusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications ; and they 
shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall 
mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall 
be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his 
first-born. In that day shall there be a great mourning in 
Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley 
of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family 
apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their 
wives apart ; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and 
their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, 
and their wives apart ; the family of Shimei apart, and 
their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family 
apart, and their wives apart. In that day there shall be 
a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the in- 
habitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. And 
it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, 



140 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, 
and r they shall no more be remembered : and also I will 
cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out 

of the land In all the land, two parts therein shall be 

cut off and die; but the third part shall be left therein. 
And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will 
refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold 
is tried : they shall call on my name, and I will hear them : 
I will say, it is my people ; and they shall say, the Lord is 
my God. For I shall gather all nations against J erusalem 
to battle ; and the city shall be taken. Then shall the Lord 
go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought 
in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day 
upon the Mount of Olives. And it shall be in that day, 
that living waters shall go forth from Jerusalem. And the 
Lord shall be King over all the earth : in that day shall 
there be one Lord, and his name one. (Zech. xii. xiii. 1, 2, 
8, 9, xiv. 2, 3, 4, 8, 9.) 

I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse ; and he 
that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in 
righteousness he doth judge, and make war. His eyes were 
as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and 
he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself. 
And he was clothed in a vesture dipped in blood ; and h: s 
name is called, the Word of Grod. And the armies which 
were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed 
in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth 
a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations : 
and he shall rule them with a rod of iron : and he treadeth 
the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 
And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name 
written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And I saw 
an Angel standing in the sun ; and he cried with a loud 
voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 



141 



Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of 
the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the 
flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the 
flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh 
of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And 
I saw the beast and the kings of the earth, and their armies 
gathered together, to make war against him that sat on the 
horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and 
with him the ealse prophet that wrought miracles before 
him, with which he deceived them that had received the 
mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. 
These both were cast alive into a \_Gr. the] lake of fire 
burning with brimstone. (Rev. xix. 11 — 20.) 

The circumstances which attended the coming of our 
Lord from Paradise in several respects resemble the events 
which are described as accompanying the return from 
Heaven; not merely as concerns the world, but the Church 
also. We may then accept it as most probable, that our 
Lord's return will be, so to speak, gradual. 

1. As concerns the Church Militant and Requie scent. 
The saints who have a part in the first resurrection will 
then rise and shine with him, and those of the same order 
who will be alive will be transfigured, and caught up to 
meet the Lord in the air. 

Thus in the Lord's resurrection, together with that choice 
company who then came out of their graves, and entered 
into the holy city, there is described to us the first resur- 
rection that is to be ; and the circumstances with which it 
is to be connected. The bodies of the two witnesses St. 
John describes, as remaining uninterred three days. The 
voice of the expiring Saviour opened the graves of the 
saints. And those present at that fatal Passover from every 
region could behold this wonderful and alarming occur- 



142 



JESUS BARABBAS. 



rence ; behold it, and yet remain, for the most part, unaf- 
fected with any wholesome fear, or any compunctious vi- 
sitings of nature. Nay more ; the Lord came again into 
that holy city as the lightning ; — -many beheld the glories 
which accompanied him, but who believed on him ? When 
he will come again, and his saints with him, he will find, 
it may be, a world less responsible, less familiar with his 
name, less conscious of his power. He will then reign in 
the midst of his enemies, and gradually extend his domi- 
nion over all the earth. 

2. And then, at the second time, will the mystical Jo- 
seph become known to his brethren. And the thousands 
of the twelve tribes will become to the unevangelized 
world the blessing which it was foretold they would be. 
Some will, perhaps, be converted more slowly than others. 
Some, like Thomas, must touch : some, like Paul, must 
see : others, like the whole company of the Apostles, will 
need to haunt the Temple ; and in the sacrificial ceremo- 
nial, which, for this very purpose, may be suffered to con- 
tinue, trace out the sacred resemblances of the sign and the 
thing signified ; the divine agreement between the enigma 
and its solution. Then, unknown to all the world beside, 
will the Lord suddenly be present with them in his Tem- 
ple; and will open their hearts fully to understand the 
Scriptures : and will destroy the veil which is cast over 
Israel, in order that Israel may remove that which is 
spread over the face of all people. 

3. Lastly; the confederated enemies will be destroyed, 
and the heathen, as described in the narrative of the 
sheep and goats, will be judged according to their op- 
portunities previous to the final mission of all Israel to the 
world. Thus death will still continue 5 and, for the pro- 
bation of those who will be subjected to no other, Satan 
will, for the last time, be permitted to try and sift man- 
kind. 



JESt'S BAR ABB AS. 



143 



The enjoyment of the Millennial interval, consequent 
on the extinction of the curse, will belong especially to the 
J ewish Race, and the previously unevangelized heathen ; 
how far the contemplation of it may augment the bliss 
of the transfigured Saints, we cannot determine. The 
Millennial doctrine itself, owing unfortunately to the fact 
that its more restricted and Judaic reference has been over- 
looked, has, like every other truth, been pushed into he- 
resy ; and hence, the assertion of it has frequently been 
followed by a continued neglect of the Apocalypse. It 
has been strangely argued that the doctrine must be un- 
sound in itself, which is accompanied by such effects. But 
it should be borne in mind, that Millennial prophecies are 
found in Isaiah rather than in St. John, and it would be 
unwisely concluded that the doctrine of the necessity of 
good works must be false, because the declaration of their 
necessity, unduly enforced, has been followed by contempt 
for the Epistle of St. James. 

The Millennial period appears to be pictured to us in 
the presence of Christ on Earth during the forty days pre- 
vious to his Ascension. The Kingdom will be restored to 
the Son of David, and consequently to Israel, when the 
two families of Ephraim and Judah — once again united — 
shall acknowledge the Messiah. And in the participation 
of the risen Saints with the Redeemer, in the blessed work 
of directing the great missionary labors of Israel, I find a 
sufficient fulfilment of the Lord's promise, that the ran- 
somed Church — including the first teacher and the latest 
members, Jews and Gentiles, of the mystical Body of 
Christ, and excluding those not converted till the second 
Advent — should sit with him on his throne and reign with 
him ; judging the twelve tribes. 

Some of those whose names are written in the Book of 
Life, (Rev. xx. 12,) those who have never witnessed for 



144 



JESUS BAR ABB AS. 



Christ, such as infants, or those only converted in the last 
moment of life, (like those converted by our Lord's re- 
appearance) will not have a part in the first resurrection, 
but must await the judgment or crisis of the great day ; 
from which judgment the risen Saints will have passed into 
life, having already for the deeds done in the body, received 
the reward of a glorious crown. 

There are these differences between the general and the 
(so to speak) particular resurrection; that the former is the 
final act of Christ's power when he shall render up his media- 
torial office. Again, the general judgment will determine the 
condition of the dead only of mankind, among whom there 
will be, in the strictest sense, a crisis in separating of the 
good and bad; and lastly, there will be the final judgment 
upon the Angels,- who also will have their crisis, and some 
of them, we may believe, their restoration. The final crisis 
or judgment will involve the banishment for ever of all 
evil influences and power, from a creation which, then in its 
great Pentecost, shall be regenerated by the Holy Ghost, and 
shall through Christ be presented by the human race, made 
divine, to the Father as the glorious offering of his Children. 

For that consummation all nature groans. 

But our souls long after Thee, 0 Holy G-od, our Saviour ; 
that we may be transfigured into that likeness which the 
wasted heart of human nature so feebly conceives; that 
likeness whose light is now so quickly lost to affections 
agitated by sin, and sorrow, and fear. The enemy came in 
upon us when we were young, and the desires of our after 
years were not for Thee ; and we are sore smitten and dis- 
quieted. Oh look upon us as we are tossed upon the waves 
and beaten by the winds and scared by the darkness. Oh 
come to us, Lord J esus, over the waters, and guide us to 
the everlasting land ! 



TWO HOMILIES 

UPON 

Cftf §1% of €\mi 



i. 

THE BODY OF CHRIST VISIBLE : OR, THE CHURCH MILITANT. 



That they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 
that they also may be one in us : that the world may believe that 
thou hast sent me. I in them, and thou in me, that they may be 
made perfect in one ; and that the world may know that thou hast 
sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." — John 
xvii. 21-23. 

One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require : Even 
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, — 
to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit his Temple. For 
in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his tabernacle : yea, in 
the secret place of his dwelling shall he hide me, and set me up 
upon a Rock of Stone." — Psalm xxvii. 4, 5. 

" By your patient-waiting secure your souls." — Luke xxi. 19. 



13 



THE BODY OF CHEIST VISIBLE; 

OR, 

THE CHURCH MILITANT. 



# $ $ % "The house of God, which is the Church of the living God, 
the pillar and ground of the truth ; and without controversy great 
is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh, justi- 
fied in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, be- 
lieved on in the world, received up into glory." — 1 Tim. iii. 15, 16. 

The Church of Christ is a temporary organization, pro- 
vided by the Redeemer, to administer in his stead the 
interests of the kingdom of heaven. It is twofold : visible 
or militant; invisible or requiescent : in the resurrection it 
will be triumphant, and shall cease, as the Lord will then 
personally direct and order all things. The Scripture 
above recited describes the Church as it exists, in its visi- 
ble state, as to what it is, and what it does. The Church 
of God is the House of God; it is the pillar and ground 
of the truth : and the truth which it proclaims, is what is 
described as confessedly great : — The mystery of godliness. 

I. The description of the Church of God as the House 
of God, reminds us of that declaration of the Redeemer's, 
which he made, speaking of the temple of his body. The 
house of God is that place where God dwelleth. And as 
in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, so 
the Church is the fullness of him who filleth all 
in all. From such statements as these, it is plain that 
if we would have correct notions of the Church, we must 



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have correct notions respecting the Redeemer's person ; for 
the one is certainly set forth as efficiently representing the 
other. 

II. Again, the Church is described as to what it does. It 
is described as the pillar and ground, or base of the truth. 
Here the former image is varied. God is often called a 
Rock ; and the Redeemer, in reference to his crucifixion, is 
called the Corner Stone, as uniting thereby the two divided 
portions of the human family — the Jew and the Gentile. 
Another image employed, is that taken from the human 
body, in which Christ represents the Head, the Church the 
Body and Members, which derive from the Head all vital 
power and support, contributed through joints and bands, 
through ministers and means of grace. The image before 
us represents the Church as a pillar rising from a secure 
base, and bearing on it, as an inscription, the Christian 
faith. From the base or ground, the Apostolic company, 
and the first teachers of the Gospel, rises up higher and 
higher, as time passes, and members are added, the divinely 
organized system of the ecclesiastical body, proclaiming the 
truth for which the Divine Martyr died, that he who was 
very man was God manifest in the flesh. Those who call 
Christ only a man contend that we should read, " He who 
was manifested in the flesh, was justified in the Spirit." 
But the word mystery which introduces the inscription, 
implies, according to its ancient use, a God, as immediately 
as the word royalty implies a king. But according to this 
improved reading, the words " manifested in the flesh" 
are words without a meaning; for a human being cannot 
be manifested in any other way than as a human being ; 
and to be a human being at all, he must be thus mani- 
fested. But the words, " He who was manifested," imply 
an existence previous to this revelation, at the least. 

(i.) Let us, then, consider, in the first place, our Lord's 



OR, THE CHURCH MILITANT. 



149 



nature and office, as exhibiting what is the nature and 
office of the Church. 

I. The Lord Jesus, before ascending up on high, was 
God manifest in the flesh, and possessed a Divine mission, 
a Divine life, and a Divine nature. 

(1.) He was God manifest in the flesh, as Son of David, 
Son of Abraham, Son of Man. (2.) His Divine mission 
consisted in this, that the Father sent the Son to redeem 
the world, to recover it from the bondage of corruption, 
and to give it everlasting freedom. (3.) And to this end, 
when, by the resurrection from the dead, he was declared 
to be the Son of God, risen in the power of an endless life, 
He brought life and immortality to light. In him first, 
the human nature was immortalized. (4.) But over and 
beyond this Divine life of the resurrection, there was the 
Divine nature, which, from the beginning, in the proper 
sense of incarnation, was in him united with the human. 
Thus it was that he, being man, made himself God. 

II. Thus was the Lord Jesus constituted. And simi- 
larly constituted is his body, the Church. 

(I.) And first, the Lord's human nature describes the 
human element in the Church. Composed in the first in- 
stance, of the peculiar election of Israel, all its Apostles and 
inspired Prophets, and Seers being exclusively Israelites, 
after the flesh — it was in progress of time extended to the 
election of the Gentiles, the spiritual descendants of Abra- 
ham, and in the final proclamation of the Gospel will 
embrace the heathen, who are in the uttermost parts of 
the earth. 

(2.) The Divine mission of the Church he has himself 
declared. " As the Father hath sent me, even so send I 
you." A mission perpetuated throughout all ages, not 
more by the very necessity of the case, than by our Lord's 
promise, " Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of 

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the world. n The mission was to be carried on to the end of 
time, and imparted to others through thein, as it had been 
imparted to them through Christ. This uninterrupted pre- 
servation of the ministry of Christ, the most indubitable fact 
in all history, and the Lord's pleasure that ordination by his 
Apostles should be held equally valid with his own, is in- 
dicated at the outset by the election of Matthias. Though 
on that occasion, as it preceded the descent of the Holy 
Ghost, an appeal, which was never afterwards repeated, was 
made for the decision of Heaven. As the Father sent the 
Son, the Son sent his successors ; and thus those successors 
appointed others. Thus Barnabas and Saul, already saints, 
were set apart, i. e., consecrated to the ministry; thus 
likewise Timothy and Titus. 

(3.) Beside the Divine mission, the Lord imparted to 
his successors that resurrection life, the fountain-head of 
which is now hid with Christ in God ; a gift, from its very 
nature, entrusted to them, not for the ministerial class 
alone, but for the use of the whole body. Thus we read 
how, ere his ascension, the newly-risen Lord, when he 
gave them their commission, (St. John, xx. 22.) "breathed 
upon (or rather, into) tliem;" thus, in a most affecting 
manner, infusing and impregnating them with his own 
immortality, and in the strictest sense fulfilling his own 
promise, " because I live/' i. e., am to live, "ye shall live 
also." Henceforth the new creation dieth not. It has 
passed from death unto life y it can never see death ; death 
hath no more dominion over it. The physical dissolution 
is not death in its moral and penal reality. When the 
Prophet of Israel, one of the great types of the Redeemer, 
restored the dead child, he warmed it by the position of 
his own body (1 Kings, xvii. 21); a position such that 
he must have breathed upon the fixed features and closed 
eyes of the inanimate one. This was but foreshowing, as 



0R ; THE CHURCH MILITANT. 



151 



in parable, the Lord's act. And this life of the Lord 
Jesus in our mortal bodies, communicated to the first mem- 
bers, is, through them, conveyed to all, and sustained in 
all by the sacraments of the Redeemer. The disciples, 
like their Master, had already been baptized with the bap- 
tism of John. By the breathing into them of the inex- 
tinguishable principle of the resurrection life, the Chris- 
tian Sacrament of the new birth, though not yet for a brief 
space to be promulgated, was completed in the disciples. 
This is the life of the new birth of water and the Spirit; 
this is that life which the body and blood of the Lord 
Jesus, in the communion of bread and wine, again and 
again restore and confirm in us. 

(4.) This Divine mission, however, needed to be authen- 
ticated by, and this Divine life was required as a prepara- 
tion for, the Divine presence. Thus our Lord fits them to 
receive, and commands them to receive the Holy Ghost; 
which indeed, as distinct from his own proper divinity as 
Son of God, he could not, at the moment of this command, 
convey to them, as he had not yet ascended. And hence 
the revelation of the Holy Spirit at the Pentecost was not 
only an earnest of Christ's arrival at the throne of Heaven, 
and a visible anointing of the Apostles to their office, re- 
sembling what took place on the occasion of our Lord's 
baptism ; but it bore, in a more awful respect, a likeness 
to this latter event, inasmuch as it notified the presence of 
God in the Apostolic company — those flaming tongues of 
cloven fire gloriously symbolizing, not so much the gift of 
many languages, as this blessed truth, that God henceforth 
would speak in men, and from men, the gospel of salva- 
tion ; pardon for sin imparted on earth, and peace sealed 
in heaven ; the sympathy of the Lord who suffered for us, 
the love of the Father whom he died to reconcile. Thus, 
as the Lord Jesus breathed life into his appointed ones, so, 



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under the sanction of God the Holy Ghost, was that gift 
henceforth to be conveyed through the element and sign 
of water to all who afterwards should repent and believe. 
In this sense it is that the Holy Spirit is in baptism the 
Giver-of-life. But He is also, of his own office, the Giver 
of light, For he it is that spake by the Prophets. He it 
is who was promised to teach us all things, and lead us 
into all truth ; and this, the unction of the Holy One, was 
to make us know all things; which all things, the whole 
revealed mind of the Spirit, poured on by the prophetic soul 
of the Church, compose the Scripture of truth. 

(ii.) Thus what Christ is, interprets what the Church 
is ; and such is the union between the Body and the Head. 
The nature and life one, and the mission one ; and hence 
the import of our confession, "I believe in the Holy 
Catholic Church." Not a corporation of yesterday; not a 
combination or alliance for religious purposes ; not a form 
shaped at haphazard, or moulded in the heated imagina- 
tions of the blindly sincere or the self-willed ; but a sacra- 
ment ordained by Christ, a heavenly system ushered in 
once and for ever amid a blaze of miracles, a repetition of 
which, therefore, must be looked for to authorize departure 
from or change in that system; the House of the Living 
God, visibly existing for all, through all Christian time; 
full of God ; edified by the ministers, the mission of the 
Father, who has adopted it ; sustained by the sacraments 
of God the Son, who is with it ; enlightened by the Scrip- 
tures of the Holy Ghost, who is in it ; those ministers, and 
sacraments, and Scriptures, the pillars, and the doors and 
strongholds, and the candles of the temple. Where the 
first of these is not, the Church is not ; her office is 
broken; she no longer proclaims the God manifest in 
flesh ; the pillar overthrown, the superscription is lost. 

Here are suggested the following considerations • — 



OR, THE CHURCH MILITANT. 



153 



(1.) The Church is not founded upon doctrines, Scrip- 
tures, or principles, but upon persons; Apostles and Pro- 
phets, and all Christians from the beginning, form the 
building. On the other hand, the Church is the Witness 
and Preserver of Holy Writ. She offers the Bible to the 
world, and invites it to prove from it the truth of what she 
teaches. Hence they who reject the Church, reject the 
witness to the Scriptures. They cannot prove what are or 
are not Scriptures ; that so much, and no more and no less, 
is the Bible. The introduction of a subjective standard of 
authority is a rapid step in the direction of infidelity. 
Separated from the testimony of the Church, whose fathers 
declare that they received as the authentic Word of God 
these writings from the inspired Israelites, devout persons 
reason that the Bible is the Word of God, because it speaks 
to their feelings, and they find it enlightens their hearts. 
But there are large portions in its law and history which 
can hardly be alleged as the sources of such results, while 
much of the remainder, from its obscurity, or from its 
never having engaged the thoughts, may equally fail to 
make good the assumed criterion ; and there are many 
writings, as, for instance, the epistle of Clement, which, 
for their spiritual tone and affecting exhibition of truth, 
might deserve to be ranked within the Canon. Vndevout 
separatists, on the other hand, reject it in the whole or in 
part, according as its express teaching is found to contra- 
dict their moral, ecclesiastical, or literary notions. The 
witnesses of the Church forsaken, it has invariably fol- 
lowed that that has been declared to be the Word of God 
which is not, or that that is not the Word of God which is. 

(2.) Further, the Church cannot originate truth. As 
the Lord, our Redeemer, professed to speak only the words 
which he had heard of the Father, so the Church pro- 
claims those truths alone which she has received. When 



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she presumes to propound doctrines from her own inherent 
inspiration, and apart from the Scriptures, she raises her- 
self above her Lord. She contradicts His word, who said, 
" The disciple is not greater than his Master/ 7 lie proved 
all things from the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. 
She requires' that only to be believed unto salvation which 
can be read in or proved by the Scriptures. 

(3.) In this one truth, that the Lord Jesus was God 
manifest in the flesh, are involved all the tenets of Re- 
demption. He was the Temple of God. And this house 
which the Better Solomon hath builded for us, is also the 
Temple of God. One visibly, one in Spirit, as he was 
one. Now, unity of Spirit implies unity of action; and 
the proof that our religious lives are under the guidance 
of one Spirit, is found in our being coupled within one 
bond of peace. Where this is not, the presence of the 
Spirit, in its fulness and efficacy, cannot be fully asserted. 
If Christians are all travelling to the one point, for safety- 
sake they will desire to travel in company, especially where 
the route lies through an unfamiliar and perilous region. 
Good words, however often repeated, will be ever welcome 
to the ear in that lonely land ; and the recurrence of forms 
and usages, dear and useful to many, because well known 
and habitual, will not be despised. If danger to the soul 
can be proved to have followed where different routes have 
been pursued, and thus the same oft-speaking guides have 
been declined, those who cling to them should not be ex- 
pected, for peace-sake, to renounce them. Rather, those 
who have renounced them should re-submit to theni^ 1 ) 
especially when it is remembered that they have only for- 
saken one class of guides and helps for another, one class 
of rites and forms for another ; the prepared for the ex- 
tempore use 5 the font for the pulpit. The Word of God, 
delivered from the pulpit, no doubt awakens; but spoken 



OR, THE CHURCH MILITANT. 155 

beside the font, it begets anew. But in the former, the 
powers and personal qualifications of the man inevitably 
come to engross more of the thoughts than there is oppor- 
tunity afforded for, beside the latter. Where, however, 
the one is only exchanged for the other, what truth or jus- 
tice is there in the profession made on this ground of a 
greater spirituality ? Or, how can they justify the claim 
to an especial gift of the spirit of the evangels, who, for 
the minims, as they account them, of outward custom, for- 
sake that body which alone, through so many centuries — 
while all separate bodies have, more or less, renounced the 
faith — has maintained without variation all the maxims of 
redemption ? And surely, if the multiplication of parties 
within one communion be a sin, the multiplying of commu- 
nions must be a sin likewise. Surely, if it be not right to 
say this is the one true Church, it is not sin to join or found 
another communion. Surely, if the Church is to be deter- 
mined by the same relative, and, as has been shown, infi- 
delizing subjective criterion as the Scriptures, and that is 
to be regarded as the true Church, by each, which each 
thinks contains most of those whom each believes to be the 
objects of an unrevealed and irrespective election — or most 
of those who appear repentant and believing — there can 
be no such thing as schism, no such virtue as obedience. 
They little think who urge this mode of judging, what 
multitudes it has drawn into that erring communion, whose 
holier labours are so notable, and which, judging from its 
numbers, duration, and extent, may not unreasonably 
claim to possess a majority of the faithful. In fact, these 
popular notions are not more fallacious than they are un- 
scriptural, nor more unscriptural than they are unnatural. 
Christ, we may believe, is with many who are not his dis- 
ciples. But the professed disciple who is not with him, 
following him in the one visible body, is — it may be often 



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un designedly — against hini; and by not gathering with 
him is — a truth of which we have so much sorrowful expe- 
rience every day — in fact, scattering abroad. Further- 
more, these notions are not shaped so as to square with the 
dictates of that good natural affection, the want of which 
the Apostle notes as a woeful sign ; for there is not any 
man who would be content to see in his home, and among 
the objects of his affections, only that amount and hind of 
unity which by so many is reputed as not only a sufficient 
unity, but the all-to-be-desired for the household of Grod.( 2 ) 

(4.) The Redeemer (St. John xvii. 21), in his prayer 
for his ministers and disciples, prayed that they might be 
one, in order that the world might believe and Jcnoic that 
he was God manifest in the flesh. And how can the un- 
spiritual world know this unity, except by a visible exhi- 
bition of it ? Or how can those be called one who, though 
they have some things in common, never appear as one ; 
who never act, and never seem even to think as one ? It 
is a common truth — and why not true of Christianity ? — 
that union is strength. Our blessed Lord, by his prayer 
just referred to, has taught us that the salvation of the 
world depends upon the visible union of Christians, the 
preservation of those who already profess, and the conver- 
sion of those who know not the Lord. Now, amid all 
strifes, the essence of that Church has remained unaltered. 
Its mission, its sacraments, its Scripture, associate those 
who receive them into one body, which exists to this day, 
and shall for ever exist. "Where those are rejected, the 
Lord is rejected. The rejection of the Body involves the 
rejection at last of the Head; the rejection of the Head, 
the rejection of the Body. 

Hence, in the beginning, they were the unsanctified who 
were the makers of sects (St. Jude, 19); and these began 
by denying the human presence of the Lord. In the latter 



OR, THE CHUECH MILITANT. 



157 



days they have denied, more especially, the human pre- 
sence of the Church ; and hence, in both cases, there has 
been adopted a low standard of personal holiness. Some 
have separated the Lord from the Church ; others have 
separated the Church from the Lord. They have builded 
unto themselves houses, and set up a pillar, but the houses 
are not upon the Rock ; they are not of God, nor is His 
name there. But the great parent corruption of later times 
has consisted in the separating the Church from the Lord, 
by the introduction of a visible head. Hence the body is 
made to appear with two heads, and the Divine mission, 
derived through all the Apostles, by being limited to one 
is, in effect, denied. That one has been elevated to be the 
sole fount of all spiritual authority, and a fourth order, in 
addition to the already existing three, has been introduced 
into the Church. Thus the threefold cord, not easily 
broken, by addition in the middle, has been weakened at 
the extremity. And hence the sacraments have been 
changed, mutilated, and multiplied, and the witness of 
that portion of the Church to the Scriptures is a false wit- 
ness. The erring daughter appears with a lie in her right 
hand. And what has been the result ? The blessed Vir- 
gin Mary has been received as a Deity, as one conceived 
and born immaculate ; and how then capable of imparting 
to her child the genuine humanity of our race ? He is 
forsaken who was once manifested in the flesh, and his 
Mother is the sole hope of millions. The Body corrupted, 
the Head of the Church is denied. 

(5.) On the other side a similar, and equally fatal con- 
clusion has been reached, by separating the Lord from His 
Church. His presence with it denied, it is rejected. Thus 
the continental Reformers at first mourned their loss of that 
Divine mission which is centered in the episcopate ; but 
their successors either have denied the necessity of any 
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THE BODY OF CHRIST VISIBLE ; 



ministerial order, or (since no separatists continue for any 
time to occupy the original grounds of separation) they 
have proclaimed as indications of spiritual purity and ec- 
clesiastical completeness, those accidental deficiencies which 
the first separatists lamented. In this controversy it has 
been assumed that the ministerial order in Israel began 
with the law, and with it has ceased from Christians. But 
this is quite contrary to Scripture, which speaks of a priest- 
hood already in existence when the law was given. (Ex. 
xix. 22 ; xxiv. 5.) And if it were true that the priesthood 
was created for the first time by the law, the alleged con- 
clusion does not necessarily follow. All that was typical 
of Christ, the bloody sacrifice and visible Headship, and 
the one place of worship where these were exhibited — these 
have been evacuated; the remainder, not typical of Christ 
but of the Church, has been fulfilled in the Church. The 
very fact that the Lord J esus is the High Priest of our 
profession, implies that in our profession there are subor- 
dinate priests. To a nation of priests the Christian belongs 
as well as the Jew. (1 Pet. ii. 9; Ex. xix. 6.) Aaron 
concealed within the veil, is superseded by Christ passed 
into the heavens. But as the one left behind him the 
chief priests, priests, and Levites, so the Redeemer provi- 
ded in his body its threefold ministry. And even if this 
were not so, surely a pious reader of the Scriptures should 
be rejoiced to find, that, in an open question, the guidance 
of the Bible has been followed, and God's model of a three- 
fold order, be the officers named as they may, continued in 
the Church. ( 3 ) 

Upon this rejection of God's mission, there has ensued 
a gradual corruption of the sacraments. Reduced, in the 
first instance, to a bare initiatory and memorial rite, they 
have been, at last, by many repudiated altogether; the 
more consistent course, for nothing of that kind has pro- 



OR, THE CHURCH MILITANT. 



159 



ceeded from Christ. The Scriptures have fared similarly. 
Pretexts have been devised for the extrusion of occasional 
texts. A larger license has then been claimed, till the 
whole is denied. And, finally, the Godhead, and then the 
very historical existence of Christ, is disavowed by commu- 
nities that lay claim to an errorless Christianity. . 

(6.) According to the Scriptures, wherever there were 
Christians, at Corinth or at Ephesus, there was but one 
communion, not many; one family of love, multiplying 
without division ; supported and trained by the Apostolic 
ministry, the Sacraments and Scriptures; the Apostles' 
doctrine, and fellowship, and breaking of bread, and 
prayer. And the Apostles' authority was exercised to 
denounce, as well those who would make sects within, as 
those who would cause secession from this body. Now, it 
does seem incredible that those who profess a peculiar 
veneration for the Scriptures should be found, with this 
sketch of primitive Christianity before them, to advocate 
the condition of Christian bodies at present — ever multi- 
plying by division, and the more they divide, wandering 
farther from the truth. But since, according to the Bible, 
those are the integral portions of the Church which pos- 
sess the Divine mission, Sacraments, and Scriptures ; then 
the Eastern, the Anglican, and her sister and daughter 
Churches alone, by God's mercy, have held unimpaired 
these precious deposits( 4 ), all united, at least in heart and 
sympathy. All others, having renounced, in whole or 
part, these sacred trusts, either originate new creeds, or 
lay claim to a corporate or individual infallibility, or iden- 
tify themselves exclusively with the principles of secta- 
rianism. The ceremonial of each extreme seems to indi- 
cate the bias of the respective systems. The one Judaizing 
in rituals, after the manner of the temple, comes at last to 
impugn the Lord's humanity ; while the other extreme, 



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Judaizing after the manner of the synagogue, learns to 
reject the Divinity. Both terminate in idolatry. Those 
bodies which dogmatically reject the Ministry, Sacraments, 
and Scripture, are not Christian ; and, on the other hand, 
the Church of Eome has ceased to be the Church of Christ; 
her authority is extinct, her commission at an end, not 
because she has sinned in slighting her Redeemer, and 
closing the gates of mercy and peace upon those within as 
well as those without her pale ; but because so subtle is the 
spirit of delusion which possesses her, she cannot repent. 
That reformation which took place within her at the time 
of the Council of Trent, was only the cleansing of the out- 
ward, the sweeping and garnishing of the mansion, prepa- 
ratory to its reinhabitation by a sevenfold energy of impu- 
rity. The noble spirits, which in that age glorified her by 
their labors and their love, have had no successors ; and 
they but forged the fetters which her members now wear ; 
just as in the declining days of Zion the triumphs of the 
Asmonsean warriors prepared the nation to submit to the 
degrading tyrannies of the house of Herod. 

(7.) But though not belonging by membership to the 
Church, Christians in these bodies are, doubtless, many of 
them, mercifully supported by God. What truth they 
hold sanctifies them. How we must venerate those who, 
with all their disadvantages, have equalled, in many cases, 
what the Church has produced of spiritual growth ! How 
many have been characterized by an unquenchable love 
and a Christ-like zeal, while the eloquence of not a few 
has kindled and glowed with all the burning inspirations 
of the Pentecost. But Saul converted, needed to be bap- 
tized ; Saul baptized, needed to be ordained. So excellent 
without, what would they have been, or would they be, 
within the Church, to whose presence and activity their 
right faith is, under God, attributable ? But where that 



OR, THE CHURCH MILITANT. 



161 



presence and activity are not, the sad results but give ad- 
ditional proof that the perpetuity of faithful doctrine is 
inseparable from the discipline of the faith. The truth 
perishes with the pillar on which it is inscribed. 

(8.) Nor is this to be wondered at, since, to deny the 
mission of God (in part or in whole), in the apostolical 
succession, is to deny the truth of God; is to deny His 
promise of perpetual presence with His missionaries, and 
thus to give unlimited license to the multiplication of 
sects. Hence the destruction of the Episcopate (at which 
the Court of Eome has labored so assiduously) has been 
declared by some to be all that is required for the revela- 
tion of the Man of Sin. For if the Father have sent min- 
isters through the Son, he who denies them denies the 
Father and the Son. At the same time, there is no senti- 
ment more heinous than that outside the Church there is 
no salvation. It is our duty — we are all responsible for it 
before God — to draw all whom we can inside the Church. 
The place is secure ; it is the treasure-house of God's pro- 
mises. But those who, from accidents of birth, from ig- 
norance, infirmity, or want of opportunity, have not been 
received into the Church, are responsible only for the 
light given them. Wilfully and consciously to reject — 
this is the sin. In this respect, the Church on earth is 
like a stronghold — besieged by the armies of the great 
enemy. The duty and safety of all require that they re- 
main within the walls. If some, offended with their com- 
manders and comrades, go forth, or, born and reared out- 
side, continue there to fight by themselves, they sin indeed, 
because they have divided the force, and exposed them- 
selves, unsheltered by the Divine rampart, to the cruel 
enemy. But if they die in harness against the common 
foe, the invisible succourers of the beleaguered fort give 
them rest with all the other spiritual warriors departed, 

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while treason to the cause within the camp, or desertion 
from it without, is death without repose. Thus, though 
the invisible Church lies within, and on earth is reached 
through the visible alone, yet, as in the case of believers 
before the Church's existence, admission into communion 
is given beyond earth to those who, according to their 
power, have loved and fought for Grod. But if, by the 
sentiment referred to, we are to understand that, visibly 
or invisibly, here or hereafter, each soul, in order that its 
election may become effectual, must be added to the apos- 
tolical community, the sentiment is altogether true; for 
what the Redeemer said of the Jewish communion to the 
Samaritan woman, is true of his own body. Salvation is 
of the Church. Blessings and miracles were given to the 
Samaritans, and they believed in Christ ; nevertheless, sal- 
vation was of the Jews. Others will be saved, but salva- 
tion is of the Church. Nay, even of the Church in its 
visible state this is true, to some extent ; for as all that the 
Samaritans had of right faith was of the Jews, so all of 
right faith or hope that separatists have now, is of the 
Church of God. As the boats, which attended that fa- 
vored bark where the Lord was in person, shared the 
miraculous calm which His word created amid the waters 
and the winds, so the separated communities around the 
Ark of Christ, who love and seek to be united to it, through 
his presence in it, partake the blessing, and finally enjoy 
the peace. 

(iii.) Lastly, that in all respects we may be conformed 
unto him here, and especially in the fellowship of his suf- 
ferings, a like success will attend the labors of Christ and 
his body. The latter fills up the measure of his sufferings. 
The world did not receive his testimony concerning him- 
self, that he being man was Grod. His body testifies the 
same, but the world will not receive that testimony ; was 



0R ; THE CHURCH MILITANT. 



163 



never less disposed to receive it than now. His mission 
was to the Jews, who, he knew, would reject him- her 
mission is to the Gentiles, who, she knows, will not hear 
her. The biography of the Lord Jesus, the Head, is the 
history, written beforehand, of the Church, which is his 
Body. Did he perform miracles of mercy and love ? Did 
he recall the dead to life, and feed thousands ? So does 
the Church ; distributing the Word of God, she awakens 
men from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness, 
and nourishes them with works and sacraments of mercy. 
Was Christ followed by the crowd — promised a crown — 
clad in purple — hated by Herod — scorned by the rich and 
learned, and suspected by Governments, or mocked with a 
show of reverence and admiration ? The same has been 
the Church's experience. The " bitter mockings and 
scourgings" have been felt by her. The purple robe, in 
which States array her, may be pointed at in contempt, or 
bestowed, not for Christ's sake, but for mere temporal ends. 
As Judas betrayed, and Caiaphas arraigned him, so will an 
apostate branch of the Church, and an apostate ruler in it, 
forsake and betray his body. Again shall the multitude 
choose the false and reject the true ; clamour for Jesus 
Barabbas, and deny Jesus Christ. For the body of the 
risen Saviour shall be forsaken, and Antichrist, the great 
Barabbas of the future, shall reign ; and his Church shall 
prosper, and his image prevail, and his kingdom be esta- 
blished, until the fire come from before the presence of the 
Lord. 

Such in nature, office, and success is the Church Militant 
and Visible. The doctrine from above ; the discipline 
reflecting that doctrine — the doctrine of the Trinity — from 
Heaven likewise; the house, and not the occupant only, 
is Divine; the pillar, and not the superscription only, is of 
God. 



164 THE BODY OF CHRIST VISIBLE, ETC. 

Lay deep in your hearts, dear brothers and sisters, these 
awful truths, especially deserving, of attention at this mo- 
mentous crisis of the Church. ( 5 ) Devote your lives to win 
by holiness and love, those who stand aloof, for whom day 
and night we are petitioners at the throne of grace. Think 
how the glory of God is among you ! Think that you 
have been made partakers of the Divine nature ! Think 
that to you is given the life of Jesus ! 0 that you would 
consider your warfare and the presence of your God ! From 
the darkness of spiritual indifference, from ease, prejudice 
and self-love, 0 that you would arise and shine as the 
saints of the living God ! Here is the holy banquet, to 
nourish your immortality; here is the Holy Spirit, to 
make that feast all that you could desire, to dispel every 
doubt, to give assurance to hope, and to glorify within you 
the promises of the future ! Here will you be nerved to 
fight the good fight; to feel your sorrows all your Lord's 
sorrows ; your sufferings not your own ; and thus, when 
the earthly house of this tabernacle is taken down, you 
will stand in the latter days, each a pillar of God, inscribed 
with the new name — for the Lord of the Churches has said 
it — "He that overcometh I will make him & pillar in the 
temple of my God, and he shall go out no more : and I 
shall write upon him the name of my God, and the name 
of the city of my God." (Rev. iii. 12.) 



THE BODY OF CHEIST INVISIBLE; 

OR, 

THE CHURCH RE QUIE S C E NT. 



" Thou art Peter : and upon this rock I will build my church ; and the 
gates of hell shall not prevail against it." — St. Matt. xvi. 18. 

The Church, the body of Christ, presents itself as it now 
exists, under a two-fold aspect ; as it is militant upon earth, 
and in warfare with sin and evil ; and as it is requiescent, 
reposing from its labors in the rest of Christ. In the army 
of the Lord, a large portion have finished their fight : the 
remainder either mount as sentinels on the stronghold ; or 
beat back the beleaguering foe from the ramparts of that 
heavenly city, within whose ample circuit their comrades 
are laid in their last great dormitory. As a fitting subject 
for consideration at this solemn hour^ 1 ) we shall, with God's 
assistance, engage you in contemplating the Church in this 
its condition of repose. 

I. There are not many passages of Scripture with which 
we are more familiar than with the text : " Whom say ye 
that I the Son of Man am?" And the Apostle answered 
and said, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
St. Peter, in his answer, confessed the Son of Man to be 
the Son of God and the Christ. These three truths are 
imbedded in the reply. He acknowledged our Lord to 
be God manifest in the flesh ; the very truth which the 



166 



THE BODY OF CHRIST INVISIBLE ; 



Church, as the Pillar and Ground of the Truth, is appointed 
to hold up to the gaze of the world. Thus the truth re- 
vealed unto it of the Father is not originated by the Church ; 
nor is that truth the foundation of the Church. The per- 
sons of the Apostles and Prophets, and the whole Body of 
incorporated Believers, are the ground and pillar, the sup- 
port and stay of the truth. These compose the sacred edi- 
fice, foundation, and superstructure. The Church is ap- 
pointed to proclaim, hold up to view, and maintain the 
truth of God manifest in the flesh. For this reason, the 
truth, or the Apostle's confession of the truth, cannot be 
the rock or the ground, the pillar or the base. Nor, again, 
could the Redeemer's own person be called the rock in this 
passage ; as though pointing to his own sacred Body he had 
said, " On this rock I will build my Church." This is 
mere conjecture; it is worse; it makes our Lord appear 
speaking without object or aim; for why employ the pre- 
fatory address, "Thou art Peter," and then at once desist 
from any further allusion to that Apostle ? With reverence 
be it said, Peter required to be told neither his name, nor 
who he was. 

But beside the reason of the thing, the language in which 
the Lord spoke, and the verbal arrangements of the text, 
peremptorily exclude all reference on the Redeemer's part 
to himself. 

The Rock, then, was the Apostle's person, and the per- 
sons of the other Apostles; though, as symbolizing the 
unity of the whole Body, Peter alone is expressly men- 
tioned. Upon him, as the Rock, should all the after-layers 
of the spiritual masonry be added to the building. Thus 
it was Peter who admitted into Christ the first converts 
among his own countrymen ; thus it was he, also, who re- 
ceived the first-fruits of the Gentiles, the family of Cor- 
nelius. The Redeemer's meaning, then, is to this effect : — 



OR, THE CHURCH REQUIESCENT. 



167 



" Thou art by name a rock; and the office of a rock I ap- 
point thee to discharge to my Church — in acknowledgment 
of thy great faith — by receiving unto thee, as a basis, the 
thousands from among the Jews and Gentiles, who, by the 
preaching of this thy confession of me, will be converted 
unto God." 

II. Of the Church to be thus founded, to proclaim the 
truth of God manifest in the flesh, the Redeemer says, 
" The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." What- 
ever these words imply, it will be granted that they must 
mean some peculiar blessing or privilege granted exclusively 
to that Church which the Lord himself was thereafter to 
build. 

1. This being conceded, these words cannot mean, " the 
power of the grave shall not prevail against the Church, so 
that it shall never die out, or become extinct or, u the 
members of that Church shall never be deprived of a share 
in the Resurrection" This cannot be the import of the 
text; because in Scripture Hell does not mean Death, or 
Grave. And if it ever did, there would then be nothing 
in our Lord's words to indicate the bestowal of a peculiar 
and unprecedented blessing on the Christian Household. 
The Jewish Communion has never u died out;" has never 
perished from the earth ; and we know never will ; and cdl 
mankind must rise again with their bodies : and thus it 
will not be in the power of Death or the Grave to debar 
any human being from his appointed portion in the Resur- 
rection. Our Redeemer does not therefore mean to say, 
that that will be conferred as a distinctive blessing on his 
Church, of which some already are, and all mankind at the 
last must be partakers. 

2. Or again, suppose Hell to mean the final place of 
torment; then our Lord's promise might be supposed to 



168 



THE BODY OF CHRIST INVISIBLE ) 



signify either " that the Church should neve?' he obnoxious 
to torment;" or, a that the spiritual powers, tohose portion 
at the end will be among the torments which are eternal, 
should never avail with all their efforts to overthrow the 
Church of Jesus" Now, if the words were capable of this 
interpretation, the sense so educed would be most frigid. 
It would only amount to this, that the Redeemer would 
not redeem the world in vain ; or that the Church never 
should be lost ! Besides, here again there would be no- 
thing distinctive : the powers of evil have never prevailed 
against the Church of Moses and the Revelation, that 
which constitutes a Church, intrusted to it : no more at 
this day, than during the Babylonian captivity, when altar, 
priest, and king, and temple, were to all appearance for 
ever removed. That community is still witnessing alike to 
the atheist and the deist ; and did time and space permit, 
we could suggest, with much probability in their favor, 
other great religious ends which the Most High may have 
in view, in preserving that ancient Corporation undestroyed 
by the powers of evil, and unexposed — for there is still 
among them an election, and one which never can or will 
be absorbed in the Gentile Christian Communion — unex- 
posed to the powers of torment. And it is remarkable, 
that at this day the peeled and scattered race is, if we be 
rightly informed, more numerous than ever it was. It 
still remains indissoluble as the Charter of Jehovah, in- 
dstructible as the Revelation to which it witnesses. And 
therefore something more than, something different from 
all this must be promised by Christ to his own body. 
Besides — so little of a distinguishing mark would, in this 
sense, be attached to the Church — no doubt there have 
been many righteous Heathen, who, although never ad- 
mitted into the fellowship of Moses or Christ, have never 



OR, THE CHURCH REQUIESCENT. 



169 



in this worid sunk under the persecutions of Satan, and 
who therefore will not be exposed to the penal fires of 
Hereafter. 

But we have been reasoning on the supposition that the 
word "Hell" might mean the place or the powers of tor- 
ment. But there are no grounds in Scripture for such an 
interpretation ; a bad sense which the old English word, 
distorted from its original import, has acquired in vulgar 
use ; and which bad sense has been unfortunately forced 
back upon the inspired text. 

3. As then, in the Scripture, the word "Hell" ( 2 ) does 
not signify either the Grave, or Death ; or the power of 
Death; or the place or power of torment : What is that 
sense of the word which will discover to us, in this our 
Lord's promise, an altogether new and unprecedented 
blessing insured to his Church ; which will present to us 
the circle of ideas familiar to the Apostle's mind, and 
which his Master's words were calculated to regenerate 
and enlighten, for one who, like that Master — and as the 
symbol of the whole body of believers — was himself to 
undergo all the agony of crucifixion ? 

The word means, any place that is unseen ; and in Scrip- 
ture it signifies that place of abode which is and has ever 
been to the soul what the grave is to the body. It is the 
place in which are congregated all the souls of all the 
departed; where patriarchs and kings and priests have 
themselves (that is, their spirits) " been gathered unto 
their fathers," and "to their people." It matters not 
where their bodies may have been laid. It is the place 
where J ob desired to go ; where J acob yearned to meet 
the son whose body the beasts had devoured ; it is the 
place where David hoped to join his child, and which He- 
zekiah prayed to be freed from yet a little time ; it is the 
place where Dives and Lazarus were differently lodged ; it 
15 



170 



THE BODY OF CHRIST INVISIBLE ) 



is the place where the repentant malefactor departed 
blessedly with the Just One beside him ; it is the place 
whither that same Just One, having accomplished upon 
the cross all that was to be done or suffered to the finish- 
ing of Redemption, did himself depart ; thus realizing the 
condition of his genuine humanity; of whom we say in 
the creed, that He was buried, and descended into Hell, 
It is the place where he sojourned three days, on his return 
from which he declared, that lie had not yet ascended into 
Heaven. It is the unseen abode of that which cannot be 
seen by man in the flesh, the Man unclothed and released 
from the body. 

Such is the meaning of the word \ such the place it 
designates. Its gates figuratively express its powers or 
influences. As we would say that the gates of the Grave 
were the certainty of dying, and the decay and corruption 
of the flesh, when dead; as we would call these the in- 
fluences or powers of the Grave, so to that spiritual, ever- 
thinking and conscious soul, which is the self of each, the 
gates of the unseen place would be the fear of that certain 
change which Death brings with it. Doubts as to the then 
ensuing condition of the spirit, or the gloom and desolate- 
ness of that condition when entered upon ; these would be 
the great Gates of Hell. These Powers the Redeemer in 
the text promises to counteract or revolutionize. These 
we believe he overcame as he overcame Death, by himself 
encountering them. Now, when we shall consider what 
was our -Lord's mission to the unseen place, Hell, or Para- 
dise, the subject will bring before us those powers of the 
unseen place, and we shall learn how they were overcome ; 
this review will furnish us with much that will instruct 
and comfort us ; and we shall observe that as Christ zcas, 
so the Church is ; in the flesh, His Body, the Temple of 
God, she reveals as he did the Godhead manifest in 



OR, THE CHURCH REQUXE3CENT. 



171 



the flesh ; confirming this truth by the moral miracles 
of regeneration and renewal, which she has received to do : 
While in Paradise also, sustained by the same 
Divine Spirit, she effectually represents her 
Lord. We are then first to inquire, What is revealed to 
us of our Lord's coming to the Unseen Place ? 

I. Of that short Sabbath of the Redeemer's Soul, what 
are we told in Scripture ? This : That having been put to 
Death in the Body, His Soul, through the indwelling God- 
head, went and preached to the souls in safe-keeping, in 
the Unseen Place, the Prisoners of Hope. (1 Pet. iii. 20; 
Zech. ix. 11, 12.) Of the multitudes swept away in the 
flood, there must have been many who repented, too late 
indeed to be delivered from the temporal chastisement, but 
not too late to be pardoned of God. Besides, there would 
be many needing no repentance : for instance, how many 
children, immortal souls, though not knowing their right 
hand from their left. And though our Lord is described 
by this same Apostle to ichom the words of the text are 
addressed, as proclaiming Redemption to those only who 
perished in the days of Noah ; we may no more exclude 
other souls in a like repentant state, and present then, from 
a share in this benefit, than we would exclude the other 
conditions of human life, when He says, "the poor have the 
gospel preached unto them." All had the Gospel preached 
unto them. By the repentant Souls of all the human 
family, the privilege in the present instance we may believe 
was realized. (1 Pet. iv. 6.) And if there be one truth 
indeed more than another which we should fondly cherish, 
it is this : that death of the Body is a dispensation of God 
the Father, we may believe oftener exercised in mercy than 
in judgment; that while he visits the Church of his Son, 
to take thence in anger the profane unclothed guest, it is 
because his mercy cndurcth for ever ; it is because he has 



172 THE BODY OF CHRIST INVISIBLE J 

provided some better thing for thein, that they become not 
utterly apostate, that the Egyptians perish in the sea, and 
that the rich fool is suddenly taken away. Thus, besides 
the righteous, there would be many repentant, and par- 
doned, but who, like the righteous themselves, had received 
no symbol, no sacrament of peace. To publish to all these 
the fact of Redemption ; to make all these partakers of its 
joy in the interval before the Pentecost, this seems to have 
been our Lord's task when in Paradise. 

II. And miraculously sustained in soul by the indwell- 
ing power of the Godhead, he was thus fitted to the under- 
taking. In that place where (to adopt the forceful and 
suggestive word-painting of the Scriptures) there was no 
light — but many shadows, — the one parent shadow, Death, 
■ — righteous and repentant were assembled together ; calm 
and fearless (Job iii. 18, 19; x. 21, 22), or hoping against 
hope ; or lost in dim and distracting speculations. (Rev. 
vi. 9, 10.) Silent all; no praise, no thanksgiving. The 
past with all its giant shadow had gone down for ever ; 
but the great Sun of the future, Oh where, Oh when shall 
it dawn ? The Baptist indeed, who in his own death-mo- 
ment had sent to ask of Christ, if he or some other should 
come to announce Redemption to the Departed — he had 
come among them ; but he could have known nothing of 
the Cross ; or the time of the crucifixion. In that season 
of travail, the Sufferer presents himself before them, it may 
be as suddenly as he appeared before the Eleven after his 
Resurrection ; and if Hades, in the department of the re- 
probate, was moved at the coming of the great type of the 
Power of Darkness (Is. xiv. 9), how much more the region 
of the accepted by the Advent of the Light from God ! 
Pie appears and glorifies the unseen place ; He comes fol- 
lowed by one wondrously rescued soul, to bear witness to 
the sufferings of the Cross ; that even there, in the mouth 



OR, THE CHURCH REQUIESCENT. 173 

of two witnesses, every word may be established ; He 
conies to flood Death's dark and silent home — that pit 
hitherto with no water — with the fertilizing voiceful 
streams of all sanctifying graces ; to destroy its pain for 
ever; the pain of doubt; the natural distress of the un- 
clothed Spirit; to awaken the voice of praise and thanks- 
giving in the dwellings of the righteous ; the sweet me- 
lody of eternal remembrances in the land where hitherto 
all things had been forgotten; He comes to preach unto 
them, to tell them of pardon and of peace, and of the path 
opened up to God for ever ; He comes to tell the exiles of 
Eden that He is the promised Seed ; He comes to tell the 
repentant that He is the great Propitiation, foreshown in 
so many a rite ; He comes to tell the Patriarchs, that He is 
the Bliss of all nations, the Sceptre and the Star; He comes 
to tell the Prophets, that He is the Servant and the King, 
the Sufferer and the God, of whom they sung, foretelling 
what they themselves but vaguely, if at all, understood ; 
He comes to tell the accepted of every time and clime and 
dispensation, that they should form a part of his Church ; 
that through his quickening Spirit, to be sent for the 
establishing of that Church, they should enjoy peace and 
assurance for ever in the abode of their rest- — that abode 
of many mansions thus prepared for his redeemed, where 
their repose should be taken no longer in the gloom, but 
in the clear open gaze of the reconciled Heaven : hence- 
forth would they be joyful with glory; henceforth would 
they rejoice in their beds. By his advent among them, 
he had sown deep and wide the luminous seeds of such an 
imperishable joy, as the powers of Hell should never avail 
to dim, or to extinguish. The gates of Hades should no 
more place the soul in darkness or in doubt as to the 
expectation or the experience of the inevitable change. 
They should never separate any real member of the Church 

15* 



174 THE BODY OF CHRIST INVISIBLE ; 

from the Church, as hitherto they had absolutely separated 
the Israelite from the congregation of Moses. For the 
future, what Patriarchs and Royal Saints had mourned 
and wept over, and whose lamentations for their dreaded 
estrangement in death from the light and comfort of this 
visible world still crowd the Old Scriptures, should be done 
away. The unseen place should be no longer a place of 
the Shadow of death, of silence and oblivion, but the most 
blessed portion of the Church of Christ. He comes to 
announce all this, and then he leaves them, attended by 
that selected company who were appointed to share his 
own personal resurrection, constituting with him the First- 
Fruits : it may be with this in view, that, as on earth, so, 
on their return, they might be able to furnish irresistible 
proof of the truth of that resurrection ) while this our 
Redeemer's power of departing from Paradise would be 
the highest guarantee that he would accomplish what he 
was about to undertake. 

III. This, then is the import of our Lord's declaration, 
that the Gates of Hell should not prevail against his Church. 
That fear of Death, to which men all their lifetime were 
subjected and enslaved (Heb. ii. 15,) should in Christ be 
exchanged for a blessed assurance, and a desire to depart 
and enjoy the gain of rest. The gloom, the doubt, the 
uncertainty which hung about the unseen place, about the 
destiny of the departed, the disadvantages under which the 
separated souls had, up to this time, been placed, should be 
done away. In the future there would be none of these 
•things. Samson-like, the Lord would carry away with 
him the brazen gates and the iron bars ; thus opening the 
way and establishing a communion for ever between the 
souls in warfare and the souls at rest. All spiritual know- 
ledge and blessing would be enjoyed without diminution, 
rather with increase, in the Paradise of God ; Death would 



OR, THE CHURCH REQUIESCENT. 175 

be Death no more to the sanctified spirit • nothing more 
than a departing, a resting with Christ, a lying down in 
peace ; a state far better than the state of this life in the 
flesh, with all its Sacraments and ordinances of Grace and 
Love ; a being with Christ, not indeed in his presence, that 
is Heaven, but with him more than when in the body; be- 
cause secured against his foes, and finally delivered, as he 
is, from the trials of this life. 

This is the distinctive blessing promised in the text ; ne- 
ver granted to any other than the Church, either before or 
since its establishment. And this is the blessing denied 
most strenuously by that Communion which affects to re- 
verence most these very words of Scripture, from which it 
has failed utterly to derive any right signification. 

IV. And how in Paradise now does the Church repre- 
sent Christ, doing as he did ? To whom, in imitation of 
her Lord, does she preach ? "Whom does she educate ? 
In so great a mystery, we would speak humbly, and re- 
ply :— 

She educates in and through that Charity which never 
faileth, those who have lived according to the light given 
them, as did Cornelius, and yet have been called away be- 
fore Christ has been revealed, or the Church has been ex- 
tended to them. She educates those likewise who have 
discovered Christ only in the last moments of a genuine 
and accepted repentance. She educates, finally, the young 
who have been called hence before they have been enabled 
to learn Christ. To all of these, diversely delivered from 
the' final doom by the Omnipotent Blood of the Lamb, and 
snatched indeed as brands from the burnings, does the 
Church at rest unfold the manifold wisdom of God ; and 
they are permitted to acquire there that knowledge of the 
mysteries which they were unable to attain unto here. It 
may be, that as in the instance of Abraham in the Vara- 



176 THE BODY OF CHRIST INVISIBLE ; 

ble, the words of instruction which explain God's principle 
of recompenses, are heard by the lost as well as by the 
saved; covering the one with a more terrible confusion, 
and making more doubly sweet the assurance of the other. 
Among those souls quickened by the Divine Spirit indwell- 
ing in the Church, those Catechumens of Paradise, there 
is no need of Sacraments, for there is no warfare of the 
flesh : there is no need of Scriptures, for they are present 
who delivered the Scriptures to train the ignorant to lofty 
conceptions of the Godhead. Hidden in the secret Pavi- 
lions of the Most High, and sheltered by the wings of 
Jehovah, they enjoy the fruit of their recovered immor- 
tality, and gather the delights that are hoarded up in the 
Eden of the Soul, or that bloom upon the tree of life, 
which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.( 3 ) There 
they all live unto him; a life that increases abundantly; 
whose light is ever progressing to the noon of glory, and 
whose present state is one of felicity and joy. There, un- 
der the conditions of a graduated happiness, proportioned, 
as their final happiness will be, to the circumstances of their 
spiritual state when on earth, the departed advance in the 
one faith with us, the knowledge of Redemption ; they in- 
crease in the one hope and love with us, the hope and love 
of the Lord's return and the Resurrection, when they shall 
have, — nor then, all, at once, but each in his own order — 
their consummation, and perfect bliss. Their faith and 
hope and love are one with ours : they are still upon the 
Rock : the Gates prevail no more.( 4 ) 

V. From all that has been stated, these important truths 
are to be deduced. 

1. There is no such thing now as a Church Triumphant; 
nor is there any part of the Church triumphant. No part 
of the Body can be thus, without the whole being so ; else 
the unity would be broken. The Saints departed enjoy 



OR, THE CHURCH REQU1E SCENT. 



177 



peace, joy, mercies multiplied; but they do not enjoy the 
triumph. Even the great Head of the Church, as Head 
of the Church, has not yet triumphed ; He is still minis- 
tering ; He has not yet taken possession of that which is 
his own glory : though He has returned — this in itself a 
triumph — into the glory of the Father. He is still Heir 
of all things, and we joint-heirs with him. He is not yet, 
nor are we yet, possessors ; when possession is obtained, 
the victory will have been won, and then will be the tri- 
umph, 

2. Again : He alone of human birth is in Heaven, that 
is, in the presence of the Father. As the great High-Priest 
he has entered in alone. No saintly spirit has been raised 
from its position as a member, to the presence of the great 
Head of the Church. Not that there are not Saints now 
risen, and in their bodies partakers of the Resurrection 
bliss, (or much of it, ) though without its triumph ; Saints 
such as Moses, Eiias, and those who, rising together with 
the Lord, made with Him the first-fruits. These we be- 
lieve to be likewise in that Paradise of God where, whether 
in the Body or out of the Body the Apostle could not say, 
Paul was himself once present. These composing the 
Church of the first-born, tuhose names are written in Heaven, 
are among the reposing souls of the righteous, it may be 
as blessed trophies of Christ's power and glory ; sacramental 
presences and assurances to their unclothed brethren of that 
noble portion which awaits them. Just as in the place of 
woeful expectation, a dread exhibition of the Harvest of 
Corruption, and of the worm that dieth not, may be dis- 
played to the lost, in the presence among them of that 
company of Spiritual Rebels against G od and his servants — 
of whom we are told in Scripture that they died not the 
death of all men, but went clown alive into the Hell. 
(Numb. xvi. 30.) 



178 



THE BODY OF CHRIST INVISIBLE ) 



3. From the neglect of these plain Scriptural truths, 
the most baleful Superstitions have arisen in the Church 
of God. From the too popular notion that the soul at the 
decease passes into God, the transition was easy, most na- 
tural, alas ! it would seem inevitable, to invoking it. 
Hence there has ensued a neglect of the doctrine of the 
resurrection, and of the glory that awaits and the dignity 
which belongs to the mortal Body. And from the equally 
popular notion that the spirit of the wicked passes at Death 
into a penal element, and a condition of active retribution, 
arose the impression, the feeling, the conviction, that the 
all-powerful prayers of the Church would avail to the miti- 
gation of this woe. These two popular notions, admitted in 
their premises, and held as convictions, wherever the heart 
is weak through fondness, or credulous through affection, 
its too common condition, the erroneous conclusions are 
sure to be drawn. But the truth of God as little sanctions 
the belief of the cleansing fires for the separated spirit, as 
it does the equally dangerous idea of an apotheosis. 

VI. For ourselves, dear brothers and sisters, we must 
endeavor to rejoice in the blessed truth, that the Gates of 
the Unseen Place no longer prevail. They are gone ; and 
the light of the Holy Ghost has vanquished the gloom. 
And we must not speak of our beloved ones as dead, or 
gone, or lost, or even as sleeping ; an expression, this last 
one, which, as implying a cessation of consciousness and 
spiritual activity /we may call unhappy, because it certainly 
misrepresents the meaning of the inspired writers; and 
which, wherever it occurs in our version, should be ren- 
dered or understood to mean, "resting," or " couching ;"( 5 ) 
resting in Christ, in the communion of the one Spirit, un- 
der the one Lord : this is the distinctive privilege of 
Christ's Holy Catholic Church. Blessed henceforth they 



OR, THE CHURCH REQTJIESCENT, 



179 



live together with him. (1 Thess. v. 10.) They share, 
that is, that one life which is his, and which was first im- 
parted to them here. "Whenever our dear ones, who be- 
lieve unto the end, close their eyes on this world of the 
Cross, it may indulge a soft, soothing melancholy, or en- 
large the fruitful river of our tears, to think that they shall 
never more behold the hues of Autumn, or the blossoms of 
the Spring; that old companionship, or some yet dearer 
tie, — that the hallowed associations of childhood, youth, or 
age, — the pathetic memories of far-distant years, — are all 
lost, broken, gone for ever. This is all selfish, and most of 
it is unchristian and false. The gates, hitherto but too 
strong, have been burst open ; and, glory be to the Lamb, 
Death can take away no more. Ah, yes ; from the wound 
he deals springs up what antidotes his power. Absence, 
and change, and the accidents of natural frailty, are no 
more; and every tie that bound the loved one to us, is im- 
mortalized. Though no longer in an earthly abode, but 
in the same Church ; though no longer in the path of this 
world, but in the same path of the Life which is unending, 
our departed ones continue to worship and adore. Life's 
fitful fever over, how blest are they — there, where the glo- 
rious company of the Apostles unwearyingly laud the Re- 
deemer's name — there, where the goodly fellowship of the 
Prophets are evermore proclaiming the fidelities of Jeho- 
vah—there, where the noble army of the Witnesses, in 
their snow-white robes, and with their palms of glory, 
chant unintermittecl hallelujahs to the Lamb. Ah, we are 
left behind among the graves, to sorrow, if we be wise, 
not for the departed, but for ourselves; for the warfare 
that yet remains ; for the defeats we may yet have to en- 
dure; for the tears of agony we may have yet to shed. 
Oh that thou wouldest fold us in thy strict and sure em- 



180 THE BODY OF CHRIST INVISIBLE; 



brace, until this tyranny be overpast ; that thou wouldest 
make all our bed, and pillow us upon thy bosom ; that 
thou wouldest bid the bright Angel faces be around us, 
whenever, dear Lord of Love, thou callest us away ! And 
oh that you would act on the belief, dear brothers and sis- 
ters, that the gates can prevail no more ; that the change 
in the close of the present state is a blessed one ! It is 
an ennobling thought, to live convinced how uncertain is 
the tenure of this existence ; for this it is which most will 
move us so to live, that the lines may fall unto us, not in 
the outward darkness, but in the pleasant places of light 
and joy. Oh live, pray that you may so live, that you 
may never close those doors against yourselves which have 
been unbarred for you; but that entrance may be abun- 
dantly ministered to you, through Mercy's wide-opened 
portals. Live for, pray for this; and then, when the 
Angels, radiant with the light of Paradise, shall come in 
love and pity to free you from the dust, you will be united 
to that selected choir whose portion it is to rest yet a little 
while, until the last fight shall have been fought, the last 
blow struck, until the last victory shall have been achieved 
by their brethren in the flesh. And while living in ex- 
pectation of that season, when you will shake hands and 
part for ever with sorrow and fear, you will learn on be- 
half of the saints in the flesh, as well as those who rest, 
to discharge one sacred duty, — to pray for the Lord's re- 
turn ; when the departed shall be perfected, and all shall 
be changed. In prayer for this we should not come short: 
by looking for this glorious hope, the re-appearing of the 
great God and our Saviour, we shall best fit us for life, 
whether in war or peace, or amid the triumphs of the fu- 
ture. And what if, as our souls' gaze is fixed upon that 
future, Death rise like a cloud around us, we shall not fear 



OR, THE CHURCH REQUIESCENT. 181 

to enter into that cloud; the Lord has been there before 
us ; our brethren shall be there with us ; no gate shall be 
closed; we shall still be on the Bock, on the Mount with 
God, where we shall hear words unspeakable ; it may be, 
Moses and Elias, pointing as they adore, to their Lord, 
perhaps visible beyond, and rehearsing the power and the 
love of the Transfigured Jesus. 

Amen. Amen. 



NOTES. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Note 1, page 10. 
The shining one, properly an adjective. 

Note 2, page 13. 

"He created them, by imparting to them of the power of 
his own Logos." — Athanas. on the Incarnation of the Word. 

"What was its [human nature's] chief good? the presence 
of the Deity, and our conjunction with it in love." — Basil, ii. § 
6. p. 78. 

Note 3, page 20. 
The good Angels did believe the Incarnation, when it was 
revealed to them as being agreeable to the notion of God which 
they had, which was all love, and wherein they understood the 
kingdom, and the power, and the glory of God to consist ; and 
therefore they did willingly submit to adore the humanity joined 
in one person with the Godhead. Submit ! did I say 1 They 
gloried in it with all their powers, it was their most natural 
service ; for it was a more noble demonstration of the nature of 
love than ever they had known before ; which being a clearer 
revelation of the Divinity, was proportionably an increase of 
happiness to them, as being more nearly reconciled or admitted 
to a nearer participation of the Divine goodness, the sum, the 
completion, the furthest of created bliss ! having all their joy, 
their hopes, their exultation and wonders of love, their eternal 
security and confirmation, all their glory and delight, every 



184 



NOTES. 



thought of their capacious and enlarged understandings, all 
filled up, gathered together in one, in the contemplation of that 
stupendous infinite excess of love, the Incarnation of God ! the 
virtue of which wrought up from earth to the heavens, to the 
confirmation and perpetual increase of felicity, to the blessed 
Angels, as we are taught from Ephes. i. 10. Col. i. 10. On the 
other side, the rebel Angels could not believe the Incarnation 
when it was revealed unto them, at least in the plain and lite- 
ral sense of it, as being contrary to that notion of God which 
they had. Now the Incarnation being the greatest extent of 
love, is consequently the greatest shock and humiliation of pride 
that is possible to be imagined, and so most contrary to the 
Devil the father of pride, the greatest destruction and ruin of 
his principles: as it unites, gives peace and entire satisfaction 
to the Angels of love, so it distracts and runs contrary to all the 
thoughts of proud Spirits. Thus love which is happiness . in the 
abstract, becomes a, torment to those who understand it not by 
being seen through a false prospect, and in their madness they 
blaspheme that love which is their only remedy, and curse it 
because they have parted from it ; and the more it invites them 
to return, the more do they fret themselves, and in spite run 
further from it, which still does more incapacitate them to re- 
turn ; and this it is that makes Hell immortal. And thus it is 
that the virtue of Christ's incarnation and death wrought down 
from earth to hell to the confirmation and perpetual increase of 
misery to the damned Spirits who have stood out proof against 
the last remedy, the strongest charm of love that is possible — 
the incarnation of Christ, and have separated themselves from 
his love, and pass away a sad eternity in the ruins of their 
pride irreparable ; which grows more obdurate from its being 
overcome, and from that triumph of love in the incarnation, so 
far beyond all that it looked for or could believe ; and which 
therefore being fulfilled it hates and reproaches with an impo- 
tent despair, which is the anguish of hell. — Leslie's History of 
Sin and Heresy, Works, vii. pp. 450-4. 



Note 4, page 20. 
The other Angels who had their eyes full of their own glory 



NOTES. 



185 



thought such condescension unworthy of God, — the firct sin of 
Lucifer and his Angels consisted in a wrong notion of God 
(which is the great and mother heresy) — considering of him 
falsely in his attributes of power and sovereignty. And there- 
fore they could not believe the Incarnation could be meant 
literally by God, as being unworthy his greatness, and so vast a 
diminution of his majesty to empty himself into the basest of the 
order of spirits, and therefore argued against it; not knowing 
that true power and sovereignty are in the conquests of love, 
which delights to condescend itself and advance others. But 
the desire to overpower others by force or violence, and debase 
them under our power, is so far from Almightiness that it is an 
impotent vice — whereas the exaltation and force of love is in 
humbling itself to do others good, and the higher it raises others 
the greater is its delight and glory ; nor does it fear to raise 
others too high, too near itself, (which is the suspicion of pride) 
because its delight does increase by doing good to others, and 
therefore the higher others rise its delight is the greater, and 
when it brings others to be even, one with itself, then its joy is 
in perfection. To be conquered by love is to be exalted, but to 
be conquered by pride is to be debased ; for love humbles itself 
to advance others, pride humbles others to advance itself; and 
which of these two is the most noble, is the state of the case in 
the two greatest instances of either that ever was or possibly 
can be, in heaven or on earth. — Leslie's History of Sin and 
Heresy; Works, vol. vii. pp. 446-50. 

Note 5, page 20. 
St. John xiii. 27. — Thus the Serpent and Satan are identified, 
according to the expositions of the earlier Scriptures furnished 
by the later. 

Note 6 ; page 21. 

An intelligent expositor of Ezekiel, while admitting that the 
view given here is substantially the same as that held by the 
Fathers fiom the beginning, pronounces it arbitrary, a charge 
from which he will have some difficulty in clearing his own 

16* 



186 



NOTES. 



view, viz. that the King of Tyre is affecting the Ideal Man as 
he was in Eden. For their exposition, the ancient writers 
could plead the very express wording of the New Testament, 
and before it can be rejected Mr. Fairbairn must furnish an 
equivalent authority for what he offers in its place. 

Note 7, page 22. 

Angelum rapere voluisse, divinitatem appetendo sibi unionem 
verbi quam videbat homini preeparatam, scilicet ut non homo 
sed Angelus, nec quicumque Angelus, sed ipse, eorum princeps 
assumeretur a verbo Dei in unitatem person© sicque ipse esset 
verus Deus. — Estius, § 7. p. 53, Tom ii. 

As Korah and his company were bold to appear before the 
Lord, and appeal to him whether Moses or they were in the 
right, so both armies of Angels being persuaded of the justice 
of their cause, went forth to battle, and were bold, both confi- 
dent of the victory, to appear and plead before the Lord, for 
whose honour each party did pretend to fight, (as it is still with 
us) which proceeded from the different notions they had of God. 
Satan argued the Majesty, sovereignty, and omnipotence of 
God, the poor, dejected, worthless condition of man ; and hence 
how absurd and blasphemous it would be, that God should be a 
man subject to infirmities and death. Against whom Michael 
fought from the same consideration of God's omnipotence, that 
therefore God might incarnate himself, and the more difficult it 
did appear to created minds the more glory did it bring to God ; 
that the ways were unsearchable by which God did communi- 
cate himself to his creatures, whose whole being was a partici- 
pation of God, and that it was inexcusable presumption for a 
finite power to determine how intensely an Almighty love 
might bestow of itself, even to denominate what it loves to be 
one and the same person with itself. Satan though dazzled 
with the refulgence of Almighty power, yet still pursues his 
pride, and contests that if God should choose a creature to 
make one with himself it surely must be the worthiest ; that the 
nature so joined to the Divinity must be adorable; and that it 
were against the justice of God to make noble Spirits serve a 



NOTES. 



187 



baser than themselves, that therefore, if any, it must be the na- 
ture of Angels that God will assume ; and if an Angel, who has 
greater pretensions beyond Lucifer, the brightest son of the 
morning, the glory of God's first creation 1 Thus did he exalt 
himself in his pride, and thought his army invincible ! which 
yet were not proof against the mighty arguments of love wield- 
ed by St. Michael, who stood victorious in his constancy in his 
contemplation of the vastness of the nature of love which can 
endure no limits, and where it gives knows no reserves, whose 
glory therefore is extended by the greatness of its condescen- 
sions, and therefore infinite love must find infinite condescen- 
sions to exert itself ; and man being the lowest of rational beings 
(which only are capable of union of God) that must needs be 
the creature which infinite love will choose to exalt to the ex- 
tremity of Almighty power, to make it even one with God, that 
so love, (which is God) may be all in all, may be the first and 
the last. And (in man) Spirit being joined in one person with 
a body composed of the four inferior elements, God does by this 
advance into a union with his own nature, the very lowest of 
his creatures, gross matter itself, as far as possibly it can be 
made capable ; that as all things spring from his love, and from 
thence do perpetually flow, so do they in this mysterious incar- 
nation for ever return thither again ; He is Alpha and Omega, 
the highest and the lowest. — Such glory of love could not arise 
from God's advancing the highest creature, because that would 
not be so great a condescension ; and the supreme Angel might 
perhaps attribute something of merit to himself, and despise all 
below, who might think themselves left behind or forgot by the 
eternal providence ; who yet had the same original pretensions, 
being all brought out of the same mother nothing. But in this 
wonderful economy of the Incarnation, all disparity of creatures 
is taken away ; like that of stars in the presence of the sun ; — 
so that the glory of Almighty Love shines alone in the many 
members of the great body ; that an angel cannot say to a man 
or to a woman, There is no need of you, more than the hand 
can despise the foot, or the eye reject the assistance of the ear : 
that therefore it is no dishonour for the greatest creature to 



188 



NOTES. 



serve the least, since they are all members of one body, and 
united in the Incarnation of God. Therefore Michael and his 
angels thought it not only indispensable to adore the manhood 
in God, but that it was the pitch of their glory, the sum of all 
possible bliss, to contemplate such love, such love as was un- 
fathomable to the eternal increasing flight of abstracted and en- 
lightened spirits. And not only this, but they rejoiced to be 
made ministering spirits to the meanest of Christ's members 
upon earth, (Heb. i. 6, 7,) and to take their name of angels or 
messengers from that office assigned them, even to little chil- 
dren, — nay further, they were content to learn of their, pupils, 
and to be taught of the Church the manifold wisdom of God, 
(Eph. iii. 10.) But this humility of love Satan despised, and 
instead thereof, accused man before God, as unworthy of his 

union. * * * * 

— There is a preliminary to be adjusted, that we find a reason 
why the Devil did not acquiesce in the judgment which God 
gave, since we suppose he appealed to it; as Korah and his 
company appealed to God against Moses and Aaron, and ap- 
peared with censers in their hands before the Lord -which 
cause I have made instance of as a copy of the rebellion of Lu- 
cifer, .... we know that spite and malice will oppose it- 
self out of the excess of madness and folly ; of which even our 
present case is not a plainer instance than what happened in 
the matter of Korah our parallel case : for we find that the very 
next day after that terrible and unexampled destruction, the 
rest of the congregation mutinied against Moses and Aaron for 
that very reason, and ran themselves into the same sin, which 
they had but the day before frightfully bemoaned in the judg- 
ment of their brethren : for they said, Lest the earth swaltow us 
up also : and yet they made that very swallowing up the argu- 
ment of their rebellion, for which 14,700 died by a new plague. 
Leslie's History of Sin and Heresy, Works vii. 454-460. 

Note 8, page 23. 
Hengstenberg in loc. — Tt was through this act, the rejection 
of the Son, proposed as Messiah, that the "Lamb" was "slain 



NOTES. 



189 



from the foundation of the world, 55 (Rev. xiii. 8.), that " the 
Lord of glory" was crucified by " the princes of this world, 5 ' (1 
Cor. ii. 6, 7.) 

The Psalms cannot be understood, if they be not regarded as 
delineations of the conflict between the two persons, Christ and 
Antichrist. How much happier the ancient were above the 
modern Christians, in this deep insight into the import of the 
Psalms, may be seen by comparing with Augustine on the Ninth 
Psalm, the Commentary of Bishop Home. 

In the present instance, the only question between the re- 
ceived interpretation and that offered here, is — how much of the 
Psalm is to be regarded as having Heaven for its scene, and 
Heaven's time for its time ; all expositors, with exception pro- 
bably of a few of the decidedly Antimessianic class, refer some 
part of it to Heaven. 



CHAPTER I. 

Note 1, page 28. 
South's noble Sermon on the State of Man before the Fall. 

Note 2, page 34. 
See Bishop Patrick's Note on Genesis. 

Note 3, page 38. 
— " certain Angels, ensnared by desire, fell down hither from 
Heaven. 55 — Clem. Strom. 450 d. Compare also Augustine De 
Civitate Dei. l. xx. cap. 19. 

"Were Angels utterly devoid of all bodies, then would the 
souls of good men in a state of separation, and without any re- 
surrection, be rather equal to Angels than after a resurrection 
of their bodies ; wherefore the natural meaning of these words 
seems to be this, (as St. Austin hath interpreted them,) that the 
souls of good men after the resurrection shall have " corpora 
Angelica, 55 Angelical bodies,— and, "quaiia sunt Angelorum 



190 



NOTES. 



corpora," such bodies as those of Angels are; wherein it is pup- 
posed that Angels also have bodies, but of a very different kind 
from those of ours here. Again, that of St. Jude, where he 
writeth thus of the devils : " the Angels which kept not their 
first estate, (or rather, according to the vulgar Latin, 'suum 
principatum, 5 their own principality,) but left their proper habi- 
tation, (or dwelling house,) hath he reserved in everlasting 
chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." 
In which words it is first implied, that the devils were created 
by God pure, as well as the other Angels, but that they kept 
not their own principality, — that is, their lordly power and do- 
minion over their worse and inferior part, — they having also a 
certain duplicity in their nature. But then, in the next place, 
St. Jude addeth, as the immediate result and natural conse- 
quence of these Angels sinning, that they thereby left or lost 
suum proprium domicilium, that is, not only their dwelling place 
at large, those ethereal countries and heavenly regions above, 
but also their proper dwelling house, or immediate mansion, to 
wit, their heavenly body. Forasmuch as that heavenly body, 
which good men expect after the resurrection is thus called by 
St. Paul, (2 Cor. v. 1,) 44 our habitation, or dwelling-house that 
is from heaven." The heavenly body is the proper house, or 
dwelling, clothing, or indument, both of angelical and human 
souls ; and this is that which makes them fit inhabitants for the 
heavenly regions. This, 1 say, was the natural consequence of 
these angels sinning, their leaving, or losing their pure and 
heavenly body, which became thereupon forthwith obscured and 
incrassated ; the bodies of spirits incorporate, always bearing a 
correspondent purity, or impurity to the different disposition of 
their mind or soul. But then again in the last place, that, 
which was thus in part the natural result of their sin, was also, 
by the just judgment of God converted into their punishment; 
for their ethereal bodies being thus changed into gross, aerial, 
feculent, and vaporous ones, themselves were immediately here- 
upon, as St. Peter in the parallel place expresseth it, " cast 
down into Tartarus," and here are they as it were chained and 
fettered by that same weight of their gross and heavy bodies, 



NOTES. 



191 



which first sunk them down thither; thus not suffering them to 
re-ascend up, or return back to those bright ethereal regions 
above. — CudwortWs Intellect, System, cap. v.. 

Note 4, page 38. 

For a full discussion of this subject, see the Note by the very 
learned Mosheim, in the 5th chapter of Cudworth, 



CHAPTER II. 

Note 1, page 44. 
See Sir Wm. Jones's Discourse on " Origin and Families of 
Nations, (Work, vol. iii.) and the article " Dispersion of Nations," 
in Kitto's Biblical Encyclopedia, vol. ii. 

Note 2, page 55. 
The restraining or letting power in 2 Thess. ii. 6, 7, is evi- 
dently a good power ; as in Rom. i. 18, the power is evil which 
holds, (it is the same word) the truth in unrighteousness. In 
the latter case the good is kept back ; in the former, the evil. 
This would appear to prove that the letting power of St. Paul 
is not the Roman empire, and emperor ; but Christ and the Holy 
Ghost. 

Note 3, page 56. 

Thus Byron of Nimrod — 

The features were a giant's, and the eye 
Was still yet lighted ; his long locks curled down 
On his vast bust, whence a huge quiver rose 
With shaft heads feathered from the eagle's wing 
That peept up bristling through his serpent hair. — 

Sardanapalu8 } Act iv. Sc. 1. 

Note 4, page 61. 

On the reading 666, and 616, Wetstein observes, in loc. 
neutram aberranti librario deberi existimo, quin potius utrumque 



192 NOTES. 

numerura profectum esse a maim Joannis, minorem in prima 
libri editione, majorem in secunda. 

Note 5, page 62. 
Schlegel's Philosophy of History, (Bonn's Tr.) pp. 132, 133. 

Note 6, page 84. 
Hengstenberg on the Book of Daniel, pp. 103 — 10S. 



CHAPTER III. 

Note 1, page 67. 

See Appendix to De Burgh's Lectures on the Premillennial 
Advent. 

See also Fairbairn's Ezekiel, an Exposition, pp. 44 — 46, 

Note 2, page 84. 
Compare Whitby's Tract, " A Parallel between the^ Jewish 
and| Papal Antichrist." Also, article 44 Talmud,"^ in Kitto's 
Encyclopaedia. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Note 1, page 89. 
Sir Wm. Jones was of this opinion. 

Note 2, page 90. 
See Schlegel's Philosophy of History, p. 6, note. 

Note 3, page 91. 
Schlegel's Philosophy of History, pp. 154, 155. 

Note 4, page 91. 
See Mills' Christian Advocate Lectures, p. 50, n. 8. 



NOTES 



193 



Note 5, page 91. 
Professor Kidd on China, p. 140. 

Note 6, page 92. 

In the beginning was the word. That is to say, at the 
creation of all things (£ v ap^r, as in Genesis) the Word * ex- 
isted : therefore he was before any creature ; not only before 
Joseph and Mary, but even before any such created JEon as 
Cerinthus had talked of, whether called the Word or Christ. 

And the Word was with God, Not a separate JEon, in- 
ferior to God, and distinct from God, (like to what Cerinthus 
supposed of the Demiurgns, the Maker or Framer of the world,) 
not estranged from God, but united to him, and abiding with 
him, while personally distinct from him. 

And the Word was God. Not a mere man. as Cerinthus 
asserted of Jesus, nor a creature, as Cerinthus imagined of 
Christ, or of the Word, but very God. 

The same was in the beginning with God. This is resum- 
ing what had been said before, after a kind of break, to connect 
it the more closely with the account of the creation, (which the 
Apostle was just going to mention,) and to inculcate the more 
strongly, against Cerinthus, that he by whom all things were 
made was no distant, inferior JEon, estranged from God, and 
unacquainted with him, but one that had been always with the 
supreme Father. 

All things were made by him. By the Word. Not by an 
inferior Demiurgus, not by any separate powers, not by angels, 
(as the Cerinthians taught,) not by any creature-creator, but by 
the Word himself, very God, and one with God. 

And without him was not any thing made that was 
made. Not the lower world only, but the upper world also ; not 
the material and visible world only, but the world of invisibles, 
the celestial spirits, angels and archangels, they also were made 
by the same Word ; for there was nothing made without him. 
"By him were all things created," &c. &c. Col. i. 19. So 
writes St. Paul, the best interpreter of what we have in St. 
John. 

17 



NOTES. 



In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 
The same Word was life, the Aoyoc and gawj both one. There 
was no occasion, therefore, for subtlely distinguishing the Word 
and life into two JEons, as some did. 

And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness 
cometh not upon it. So I render the verse, conformable to 
the rendering of the same Greek verb, X ata7.a t u t3dvu, by our 
translators, in another place of this same Gospel, [xii. 35.] The 
Apostle, as I conceive, in this fifth verse of His first chapter, 
alludes to the prevailing error of the Gnostics, and of all that 
sort of men ; who had adopted the ancient Magian notion of a 
good God and an evil God, the first called Light, and the other 
Darkness: which two they supposed to be under perpetual 
struggles, and obstructed by each other. In opposition, proba- 
bly, to those Magian principles, St. John here asserts, that the 
Word, the true light, was much superior to any such pretended 
rival power. In him was no darkness at all : no such opposite 
power could come upon him to obstruct his purposes, or defeat 
his good and great designs. 

He was in the world, and the world had been made by 
him, but the world knew him not. So I translate, for greater 
accuracy and perspicuity. He came unto his own and his 
own received him not. These two verses manifestly confront 
several of the Gnostic principles, viz. that the world was made 
by an inferior and evil God, an angel called Demiurgus ; and 
that Christ came into another person's work or province, not 
into his own, when he manifested himself to the world ; and 
that he did not so manifest himself before his incarnation. 

And the Word was made flesh, became personally united 
with the man Jesus ; and dwelt among us ; resided constantly 
in the human nature so assumed. Very emphatical and printed 
expressions, searching to the root of every heresy almost of that 
time, so far as concerned the person of Christ : for none of them 
would admit the Word made fleshy or God made man. Such 
sentiments agreed not with their vain philosophy ; they deemed 
the thing to be incredible. The Cerinthians admitted that a ce- 
lestial spirit descended occasionally upon Jesus ; but they nei- 



NOTES. 



195 



thef allowed that spirit to be personally united with Jesus, nor 
to be properly divine, as St. John teaches: so that in two re- 
spects those words of the Apostle confute their principles. 

And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only be- 
gotten of the father, &c. Words diametrically opposite to 
Cerinthus's hypothesis, which made the Logos not the only be- 
gotten of the Father, but a remove further off, viz., the Son of 
the only begotten, as before observed. 

And of his fullness have all we~received, and grace 
for grace. The expression, of his fullness [ix tov Tt^pw^a- 
to$ avtov,] is very observable. The Gnostics in general, and 
the Corinthians in particular, were wont to talk much of the 
Tt^pto^a, or fullness; by which they meant a fictitious pleni- 
tude of the Deity, in which the whole race of JEons was sup- 
posed to subsist, and into which spiritual men (such as they 
esteemed themselves) should hereafter be received. It was the 
doctrine of the Valentinians, (and probably of the elder Gnos- 
tics also,) that they were themselves of the spiritual seed, had 
constant grace, and could not fail of being admitted into the 
plenitude above ; while others were in their esteem carnal, had 
grace but sparingly, or occasionally, and that not to bring them 
so high as the plenitude, but to an intermediate station only. 
But St. John here asserts, that all Christians equally and indif- 
ferently, all believers at large, have received of the plenitude, 
or fullness of the divine Logos ; and that not sparingly, but in 
the largest measure, grace upon grace, accumulated grace or 
rather, grace following in constant succession, grace for grace; 
that is, new succours coming on as quick as the former should 
wear off or cease, or new supplies for the old ones past and gone, 
without failure or intermission. 

Let us now pass on to St. John's First Epistle. 

Irenseus seems to say, that St. John pointed his Epistle 
against the same. Tertullian also intimates, that St. John di- 
rected some parts of his Epistle against the Ebionites. And 
St. Jerome insinuates, that he pointed his censure both against 
Cerinthus and Ebion, making them out as antichrists in his 
Epistle. If we come to examine the Epistle itself, we shall 



196 



NOTES. 



easily perceive, that a great part of it was leveled, not so much 
against Jews or Pagans, as against false Christians, against 
the heretics of that time, Simonians, perhaps, or Cerinthians, 
or Ebionites, or Nicolaitans, or all of them, according as his 
expressions here or there are particularly pointed. The two 
principal errors which he there censures were, the denial of 
Christ's being come in the flesh, and the disowning that Jesus 
was Christ. The Docetce, (as they were afterwards called.) 
the followers of Simon Magus, denied Chrisfs real humanity, 
making him a mere phantom, shadow, or apparition, a walking 
ghost, as I observed above. And the Cerinthians making a dis- 
tinction between Jesus and Christ, did not allow that both 
were one person. Against those chiefly St. John wrote his 
Epistle. He speaks of antichrists newly risen up ; which could 
not be intended of Jews or Pagans, who had opposed the Gos- 
pel all along : and he speaks of men that had been of the 
Church, but had apostatized from it ; " they went out from us, 
but they were not of us." Let us now proceed to the explica- 
tion of those passages in St. John's Epistle r which relate to our 
purpose. 

The Apostle observes, that the Word of life (or the Word 
in whom icas life, John i. 4,) was from the beginning ; con- 
formable to what he says in the entrance of his Gospel, and in 
opposition both to Cerinthus and Ebion, who made Jesus a mere 
man, and who either denied any pre-existing substantial Logos, 
or, at most, supposed him to stand foremost in the rank of crea- 
tures. The Apostle further styles the same Logos eternal 
life, to intimate his eternal existence, in opposition to the same 
heretics, He adds, which was with the Father, parallel to 
what he says in his Gospel, was with God, and which has been 
explained above. 

In the second chapter of the same Epistle, the Apostle de- 
scribes the anti-Christian heretics of that time as denying 
that Jesus is Christ ; which amounted to the same with de- 
nying the Father and the Son; because whosoever deni- 
eth the Son, the same hath not the Father. Cerinthus 
denied that Jesus was Christ, dividing Christ from Jesus, as 



NOTES. 



197 



before explained ; and he of consequence denied the Son, be- 
cause he allowed not that Jesus was personally united with the 
Word, the eternal Son of God, nor that that Logos which he 
speaks of was the only begotten of the Father, being Son only 
of the only begotten, according to his scheme: so that he to- 
tally disowned the divine Sonship both of Jesus and Christ, and 
by such denial denied both the Father and Son. 

The Apostle goes on to say, Whosoever shall confess 
that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and 
he in God. Where again he manifestly strikes at the Cerin- 
thian and Ebionite principles, which allowed not Jesus to be 
the Son of God, in any true and proper sense, such as St. John 
lays down in several places of his writings, but particularly in 
the entrance to his Gospel, as explained above. 

In the chapter next following, the Apostle repeats the same 
thing as before, or uses words to the same effect: Whosoever 

BELIEVETH THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST, IS BORN OF GOD : and 

soon after adds, Who is he that overcometh the world, 

BUT HE THAT BELIEVETH THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD ! 

Here lay the main stress, to believe that Jesus, who was truly 
and really man, was as truly and really the eternal Son of God* 
The Apostle, in the next verse, seems to point at the Eocetce, 
as he had before done in the same Epistle, being equally con- 
cerned to maintain, that Christ had veal flesh, as that he had 
real Divinity ; that so the faith of the Gospel might stand upon 
this firm foundation, that the eternal Son of God became Son of 
man for the salvation of mankind. Hereupon, therefore, the 
Apostle, in defence of Christ's real humanity, says, This is he 
that came by water and blood. What he elsewhere ex- 
presses, by his coming in the flesh, here he expresses more em- 
phatically, by his coming in or by water and blood; alluding 
to what Christ shed at his passion, as a proof that he had then 
a real body, and was really man, not a spectre, phantom, or ap- 
parition, as some heretics pretended. It is to be noted, that the 
ancient visionaries, being ashamed, perhaps, to confess Christ 
crucified, contrived any wild supposition imaginable to evade it. 
Basilides pretended that Christ himself did not suffer, but that 

17* 



NOTES. 



Simon of Cyrene was crucified in his room. The elder Docelae 
had not so happy a talent at inventing, but were content to say, 
that Christ had no real body, and suffered in appearance only, 
imposing upon the eyes of the spectators. In opposition, pro- 
bably, to that kind of men, (of which there might be many in 
the apostolic age,) the Apostle here emphatically observes, that 
Christ came by zoater and blood: for his shedding both water 
and blood out of his side, at his passion, was a demonstration, 
that there was a real body then hanging upon the cross, not a 
phantom, or a spiritual substance. Which very argument is 
well urged by Irenseus and Novatian, in proof of the same thing, 
against the Docetce. As St. John is the only Evangelist who 
has related that circumstance of the passion, so it is observable, 
how particular a stress he lays upon it ; immediately subjoin- 
ing, in confirmation of it, and he that saw it bare record, 
and his record is true, &c. And he confirms it further from 
two prophecies out of the Old Testament. Wherefore it is the 
more probable, that in his Epistle before, he alluded to that cir- 
cumstance, and in proof of Christ's humanity. Bat St. John 
strengthens the argument farther, by superadding the consider- 
ation of the testimony of the Spirit. And there is the Spirit 

ALSO BEARING WITNESS, BECAUSE THE SPIRIT IS TRUTH itself, IS 

essential truth. The Spirit residing in the Church, and work- 
ing in believers by supernatural graces, bears testimony to the 
doctrine taught by the Apostles, and believed by the Church ; 
particularly to the doctrine here spoken of, viz., that Christ 
the Son of God became Son of Man for the salvation of 
mankind. 

The Apostle having said thus much of the testimony of the 
Spirit who is one with the Father, comes next to make the 
proper application of it, enforcing it still further, by directly 
calling it the testimony of God : If we receive the witness 

OF MEN, THE WITNESS OF GoD IS GREATER ; FOR THIS 18 THE 
WITNESS OF GOD, WHICH HE HATH TESTIFIED OF HIS SON — 
THAT GOD HATH GIVEN TO US ETERNAL LIFE, AND THIS LIFE IS 

in his Son. This is the burden of the whole Epistle, the sum 
and substance of what the Apostle aims at quite through, that 



NOTES. 



God had been pleased to reconcile the world unto himself by 
the mediation of his own divine Son made man. This was 
what the water and the blood testified in part, and what the 
Spirit of God, one with God, more abundantly testifies in the 
whole. 

The Apostle, in the close, remarkably sums up all, in these 
strong and chosen words : We know that the Son of God 

IS COME, AND HATH GIVEN US AN UNDERSTANDING, THAT WE 
MAY KNOW HIM THAT IS TRUE, AND WE ARE IN HIM THAT IS 
TRUE, EVEN IN HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. THIS IS THE TRUE GOD, 

and eternal life. I need not here stand to prove, that the 
title of true God, in this text,' is to be understood of Christ, 
because I have done it elsewhere: but I would observe further, 
how aptly every word is chosen to obviate the erroneous tenets 
of Cerinthus, and of other the like false teachers of those times. 
The Son of God : not the Son of Joseph and Mary, nor the Son 
of the only begotten, but the immediate Son of God ; related 
to God as a son to a father, not as a creature to his Lord and 
Maker. He is come, come in the flesh, and not merely to re- 
side for a time, or occasionally, and to fly off again, but to abide 
and dwell with man, clothed w T ith humanity. We are in him 
that is true, in the true Father, by his Son Jesus Christ: who 
is the true God ; not an inferior power or angel, (such as Cerin- 
thus supposed the Demhirgus to be,) not a created JEon, the 
offspring of the Monogenes, or of Silence, as Cerinthus fondly 
imagined the Logos to be ; but true God, one with the Father. 
And eternal life, the same that had been with the Father from 
the beginning, before anything was created, consequently from 
all eternity. 

The sum of what I have advanced under this article is, that 
St. John most apparently leveled a great part of his First 
Epistle against the Cerinthian doctrines; and that it may be 
strongly argued, from the evidences external and internal, that 
he wrote the proeme to his Gospel with the same or the like 
views. It appears further, that in his Epistle particularly, he 
has asserted the necessity of believing our Lord's divine Son- 
ship, his proper Divinity, under pain of being excluded heaven 



200 



NOTES. 



and happiness: " Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath 
not the Father." Whosoever denies Christ to be Son of God, 
(in St. John's sense of Son, a Son that was always with God, 
and is God,) is a liar and antichrist, denying both the Father 
and the Son, The conclusion, therefore, from all is, that the 
denying our blessed Lord's real Divinity is heresy and anti- 
christianism, much to be abhorred by every disciple of Christ, 
according to the infallible decision of an inspired Apostle. 
Many were the evasions and subterfuges of self-opinionated 
men, who thought it a thing incredible that the divine Word 
should put on flesh, or God become man, and who chose rather 
to pass censure upon the wisdom of Heaven, than suspect their 
own : but sober and modest men resigned up their faith to 
divine revelation, as was their bounden duty to do ; and among 
the foremost of those was our blessed Apostle. So now, besides 
the reason of things, taking in what the Scriptures have de- 
clared of the truth of our doctrine, and besides the true and 
natural import of the form of baptism, (urged above,) we have, 
moreover, the determination of St. John himself, for the im- 
portance of the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity, and of conse- 
quence, for the doctrine of a co-equal and co-eternal Trinity. — 
Waterland's Works, vol. iii. (Ed. Ox. 1843,) pp. 542-54. 

Note 7, page 92. 

Doubtless it was to guard the believers of the dispersed Israel 
against that oriental theology, amid whose doctors they lived, 
that St. James speaks of the Most High, as the unchanging 
and unsetting father of the Lights. — St. James, i. 17. 

Note 8, page 92. 

Burton thinks that the Neologic Gnosis is expressly referred 
to 1 Cor. v. iii. 1 — 7 ; xii. 8 ; xiii. 8. 2 Cor. vi. 6 ; viii. 7 ; x. 5; 
xi. 6. And the doctrine of iEons, Heb. 1, 2. In the repeated 
statements that all things were made by Christ, he sees a protest 
against the notions which prevailed respecting the Demiurge. 
Col. i. 16, 17. The Generation of ^Eons. Tit. iii. 9, 10. 1 Tim. 
iv. 7. The nature of Satan as an ^Eon, worshipped, by Simon 



NOTES. 



201 



Magu?, 1 Cor. vi. 4 ; Eph. vi. 12; Col. ii. 18, 19. The apostle 
opposes the Gnostic notion of a pleroma, Eph. i. 22, 23 ; iii, 19 ; 
iv. 13, 14. Col. i. 19 ; ii. 9. 

Note 9, page 93. 
Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, Cent. I. p. 11, cap. i. § iv. 

Note 10, page 95. 

Dr. Mill, in his very valuable "Christian Advocate Lec- 
tures, p. 94, and note, contrasts the Straussian theory as to the 
disciplining uses of the world with the like speculations of the 
Hindu divines. See also the article referred to in § 12. 

In this manner by establishing the existence of the ego, we 
establish that of the world; and by establishing the existence 
of the external world, we establish that of the ego; conse- 
quently the world can possess reality only for an ego, in an 
ego, and by an ego. The leading proposition of the theory is 
this: that the ego is absolute activity: that all which exists 
out of the* ego is produced by the ego, by means opposition, 
opposition, and limitation. — Tennemaii's Manual of History 
of Philosophy, (tr. by Morell,) sect. 402. 

Note 1 1 , page 98. 
Das Nichts, Nothing — is the beginning and end of the Hege- 
lian philosophy ; and here therefore German metaphysics finds 
its completion. Between the two zeros or the tw T o nothings, a 
magnificent field, including God, science, history, art, present 
themselves for contemplation and study ; and all these Hegel, 
with amazing logical subtility, has discussed. But his philo- 
sophy, whatever in other respects it may be, begins in nothing* 
from which come all things, and ends in nothing, to which tend 
all things. 

Unconsciously, however, Hegel assumed one thing, yet only 
one, though that one the real basis of the entire German On- 
tology, namely, the identity of subject and object, and con- 
sequently of being and thought. Taking it for granted that 
fact and idea must be coincident, he took the genesis of thought 



202 



NOTES. 



for the genesis of the universe, the process of logic for the pro- 
cess of God. This given, his whole system follows without an 
effort, and taken alone it is one of the most wonderful speci- 
mens of a gigantic and pitiless logic. Except this, however, 
he assumed nothing, not even consciousness, or the ordinary- 
axioms of human thought. Literally he began with nothing. 
But nothing is a negation, and a negation implies the existence 
of something which it denies. Something and nothing are the 
two poles of a truth, or idea, which consists of the union or con- 
tact of the two. Neither of these exists by itself. They exist 
in their relation only ; so that the [relation in this case is the 
only truth. 

Two contraries, such as existence and non-existence, appear 
to exclude each other. Hegel pronounces this notion to be 
false. Everything, he says, is contradictory in itself — this, in 
-fact, is its essence ; and its identity consists in the union of the 
two contraries. Thus Being (Seyn) in the abstract or uncon- 
ditioned is nothing, that is, apart from any individual or parti- 
cular thing, is the same as nothing. Existence, therefore, is 
identical with its negation, that is, with nothing. The two 
ideas involve each other. The middle term, the union or rela- 
tion of the two, is conditioned existence, that is, the universe. 

According to this logical process, then, nature and thought 
may be constructed. Subject and object do not exist as sepa- 
rate realities, but exist only in their identity. Their relation 
is the only thing conceivable. So also finite and infinite, which 
appear to exclude each other, are identical. Mind and matter, 
too, are identical, indeed they are only subject and object viewed 
in different aspects. The two poles unite and form the truth, 
which is an eternal relation. God and the universe would seem 
to exclude each other, but they are identical after all, and their 
identity is the truth. 

On this ground Hegel contended that Schelling's views of 
the identity of subject and object is not exact. The latter as- 
sumed the reality of both sides or poles of the magnet, or the 
reality of two contraries ; and the identity he called the point 
of indifference between them. Hegel decided J:hat the positive 



NOTES, 



203 



truth or reality is found not in the two terms related, but in the 
relation itself. Thus he gives us an absolute idealism, or a 
universe of mere relations. All things therefore are not mere 
appearances to us, as taught by Kant, but mere appearances in 
themselves. Thoughts are the only realities. " The real ob- 
jectivity is this : that our thoughts are not merely thoughts, but 
are, at the same time, the reality of things." 

If there be a God, then, according to Hegel, he is only the 
Absolute Thought, or rather the Absolute Relation. So that 
God, or thought, comes to consciousness only in man ! He 
finds the highest sphere in scientific thought. " It appears," 
says he, " that the World Spirit has finally succeeded in free- 
ing himself from all impediments, and is able to conceive of 
himself as Absolute Spirit (or Intelligence, Geist zu erfassen.) 
— For he is such only so far as he knows himself to be the abso- 
lute Intelligence : and this he knows only in science, and this 
knowledge alone constitutes his true existence." 

In the logic of Hegel, this and that, here and there, now and 
then, nothing and something, finite and infinite, good and bad, 
right and wrong, time and eternity, are the same things. 
These too, all are as nothing except in their identity or rela- 
tion. Properly speaking, things do not exist — they are only 
coming into existence. They form a Trinity, Nothing, Some- 
thing, and the relation between them. These, then, are one, 
one in the identity or relation. So that Hegel pretends to 
accept the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit. God the Father is the eternal Idea — Idee an und 
fur sich, that is, the Idea as an unconditional Abstraction, 
which is the same as Nothing. God the Son, engendered by 
the Father, is the Idee as Anderscyn, that is, as a conditioned 
or realized object. God the Holy Spirit is the Identity of the 
two, that is, the absolute Relation, the negation of the Negation, 
and the totality of all existence. Separate from the world, 
then, there is, according to Hegel, no God; so also, separate 
from the consciousness of man, there is no Divine conscious- 
ness or personality. The Deity is only the eternal process of 
Thought, uniting the objective movement in nature and the 



204 



NOTES. 



subjective in reason or logic, and coming to a full realization of 
itself only in the universal genesis or spirit of humanity. 

Thus vanishes, as a reality, the whole external world. Thus 
vanishes God as a self-existent personal essence, a being of in- 
telligence and will. Thus vanish, in fact, all possible beings 
and things, swallowed up in the vortex of a vast, all-devouring 
logic. Thought only remains, or rather relation, that is to say, 
abstraction, and what is this in its last analysis but nothing] 
The world is reduced to an idea, the foundations are destroyed. 
God and the universe are gone ! 

And yet hundreds of minds in Germany, some of them of the 
highest order, and all of them above mediocrity, have received 
all this as the last revelation of human wisdom, the most perfect 
triumph of philosophic thought ! What, then, can we say but 
this, that the sophists (oo$6l) of this world are caught in their 
own subtility? "Professing themselves wise, (cro^oo philoso- 
phers,) they have become fools." — From a valuable Article on 
Speculative Philosophy ; the whole of which will amply repay 
perusal, in the American Bibliotheca Sacra, (April, 1851,) 
from the pen of the Rev. Robt, Turnbull, Hartford, Conn. 

Note 12, page 96. 
The fundamental doctrine of the Vedas seems to be this : the 
various elements which constitute the Universe are only the 
various parts of the universal and primeval soul, the objective 
That, which by the very dismemberment of itself had lost its 
subjectivity. See Article Veda, in the Penny Cyclopaedia. 

Note 13, page 96. 

See at length Dr. Mill's Christian Advocate Lectures. 

The origin of the speculative views of Christ's nature may 
be traced to the works of Spinoza ; see Strauss, ii. p. 199. 
Fichte, (Anweisung zum seligen Leben, p. 166 ss.) makes a 
distinction between the absolute and the empirical point of 
view. From the absolute point of view the eternal word be- 
comes at all times flesh in the same manner in which it became 
flesh in Christ, and manifests itself to every man who has a full 



NOTES. 



205 



and clear perception of his unity with God. Fichte, indeed, 
admits that the knowledge of the absolute unity of the human 
existence with the divine (the profoundest knowledge to which 
man can attain) had not existed previous to the time of Christ ; 
but he also imagines that philosophers may not only discover 
those truths independently of Christianity, but also take a more 
comprehensive and clearer view of them than those to whom 
they have been transmitted by Christianity. On the one hand 
he professes to believe (p. 172) that all truly rational men will, 
to the end of time, render profound homage to this Jesus of Na- 
zareth, and acknowledge the incomparable excellency of this 
highly exalted person with the greater humility the more they 
know themselves ; though he also thinks (p. 173) that if Jesus 
were to return to our world, he would rest satisfied with finding 
Christianity established in the minds of men, without claiming 
adoration for himself. But on the other hand (p. 173), he main- 
tains that it is the metaphysical alone, and not the historical 
which will save a man. " If any one be truly united with God, 
it is altogether indifferent in what manner he has attained unto 
this state, and it would be a most useless and perverse occupa- 
tion to waste much time in the recollection of the manner, in- 
stead of enjoying that union itself." — Schelling, (Methode des 
akademischen Studiums, p. 175) : " The highest sense for reli- 
gion which expressed itself in Christian mysticism, regarded 
the mystery of nature, and that of the incarnation of God, as 
identical." Ibid. p. 192 : " Theologians interpret the incarnation 
of God in Christ empirically, as if God had assumed the nature 
of man at a certain moment of time. But it is impossible to 
attach any meaning to this idea, inasmuch as God exists from 
eternity apart from all time. Hence the incarnation of God is 
an incarnation from eternity. The man Christ forms in his 
historical appearance only the crown, and therefore also the 
beginning of that incarnation ; for beginning with him, it was 
so to be continued that all his followers should be members of 
one and the same body of which he is the head. History testi- 
fies that God has truly manifested himself first in Christ; for 
who that preceded him could pretend to have revealed the in- 

18 



206 



NOTES. 



finite in such a manner]" On the other hand, comp. p. 194-95, 
where he maintains that the numerous incarnations in which 
the Indians believe are more rational than the single incarna- 
tion of God taught by Christian missionaries, and p. 206 : 
64 Whether the writings of the New Testament are genuine or 
not, whether the narratives contained in them are real and un- 
adulterated facts, and whether their contents are in accordance 
with the idea of Christianity, or not, cannot affect the reality 
of that idea, inasmuch as it does not depend on this single phe- 
nomenon (i. e. the existence of Christianity), but is universal 
and absolute." According to Dorner it is difficult to decide 
whether the historical Christ (in the system of Hegel) possesses 
any peculiar dignity, or whether Hegel does not believe in the 
unity of the Divine with the human in the person of Christ, 
merely as a means of comprehending it in himself? (Dorner 
p. 414.) The adherents of the two schools of Hegel differ in 
their views concerning the nature of Christ. — Hageribactfs 
History of Doctrines, vol. ii. p. 434, n. 8. 

Note 14, page 96. 
The ritual purpose of the sacraments is not merely to keep us 
in mind of the two natures of Christ ; but also to teach us the 
co-ordinate importance, in Redemption, of the body and soul. 
How soon the followers of the Gnosis, which always embodies 
itself in dissent from the Catholic Church, come to overlook if 
not despise the body, is evidenced in the writings of the late 
Dr. Arnold. Thus in his work on (or shall we say against) the 
Church, he objects to Hooker's instancing the cure of the Blind 
Man at Siloam as illustrative of the baptismal efficacy of water. 
I cannot lay my hand on the passage in Hooker; but the objec- 
tion is grounded on the observation that in this case a bodily 
effect was produced. Now in Christian baptism a bodily effect 
is believed to be wrought by the application of the consecrated 
water to the body ; by which it is fitted to be, as we pray it 
may be, a partaker of Christ's resurrection. (1 Cor. xv. 29). 
Hence the article on the resurrection in the Creed is in imme- 
diate connection with baptism : 44 1 acknowledge one baptism 



NOTES. 207 

for the remission of sins ; and 1 look for the resurrection of the 
body" Thus in the Eucharist: " Our bodies are made elean by 
his body, our souls washed in his blood." (Prayer before Conse- 
cration.) " If [ am asked," says Dr. Arnold, referring to St. 
John iii. " why I do not take the word 4 water' literally, accord- 
ing to Hooker's canon of criticism, when he says, that ' in the 
interpretation of Holy Scripture that sense which is nearest the 
letter is commonly the safest,' I am sure that such a canon, as 
applied to a collection of works so different as those of the 
Scriptures, is at once ridiculous." (On the Church, 80-84.) 
Unhappy Hooker merits nothing from the judicious Arnold but 
ridicule and scorn. The reverence of three centuries for the 
author of the Ecclesiastical polity, is an error of fame, and must 
be Niebuhrianized. Dr. Arnold would have consulted better 
for his own reputation, had he read the page he laughed over 
with less prejudice. He would have found a canon of criticism 
laid down there very different from what he imputes to Hooker : 
— " I hold it for a most infallible rule in expositions of Sacred 
Scripture, that where a literal construction will stand, 
the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst." — Book 
v. ch. lix. 



Note 15, page 98. 
From the designation of the second person of the Trinity, — 
Word of God, the other senses of the term are derived. They 
range themselves into two orders. 



I. Where Christ is directly and effi- 
ciently present at 

1. Creation. (Gen. i.) 

2. Re-creation, or Regeneration, 

when at the font his own 
words are ntterecl. (St. Matt, 
xxviii. 19. 1 St. Pet. i. 23.) 

3. Renovation, at the Holy Feast, 

when again his own word 
takes effect. (St. Matt. xxvi. 
26-28.) 



II. Where Christ is in directly but 
yet efficiently present through 
his Spirit. 

1. In Holy Scripture, externally 

presented or internally sug- 
gested. 

2. In preaching or awakening. 

3. In teaching or edifying. 



I am not aware of any place in the Scriptures where they 
call themselves the " Word of God." 



208 



NOTES. 



Note 16, page 97. 
Hagenbach's History of Doctrines, vol. ii. 466. Swedenborg 
seems to have held that for the sanctified there was no more 
resurrection. 

Note 17, page 98. 
Schlegel's Philosophy of History, p. 150. Ed. Bohn. 

Note 18, page 99. 
GibbonVDecline and Fall, chap. xlix. sub init. 

Note 19, page 101. 
If to feed on Christ mean to believe on Christ, then to eat the 
flesh of Christ (if the phrase has to be considered parallel) must 
signify to believe in the flesh of Christ. This is absurd ; 
for the flesh and blood of Christ was not an object of faith to 
those who really sinned, by believing him too literally to be 
only a man ; nor can our belief in them be the source of 
eternal life. — Dr. Wiseman 's Lectures, p. 61. 

Note 20, page 103. 
Gibbon's Decline and Fall, cap. l. — commencement ; a bril- 
liant but partial narrative. And Taylor's History of Mahome- 
danism, chap. ii. 

Note 21, page 104. 
Gibbon's Decline and Fall, cap. l. — at close. 

Note 22, page 105. 
Gibbon, cap. l. and Taylor, p. 52. 

Note 23, page 105. 
Magna est inter viros doctos de vera sabellii sententia dis- 
sensio. Plerique virurn hunc docuisse tradunt, patrem, filium 
& Spiritum sanctum tria esse unius Dei nomina, ex diversitate 
operum & actionum divinarum nata : Deum patrem appellari, 
quando facit ea, quae patri propria sunt, quum procreat, provi- 



NOTES. 



209 



det, fovet, alit, tuetur : eumdem filium dici agentem & operan- 
tem in filio ea, quae ad humani generis salutem necessaria 
erant; Spiritum vero sanctum, quum tanquam principium virtu" 
tis omnis & sanctimoniae spectatur : quam quidem interpreta- 
tionem firmant plures veterum loci, quibus sabellivm tradidisse 
memorant, patrem ipsum poenas peccatorum humani generis 
sustinuisse, & idcirco cum discipulis Patripassianorum nomine 
insignitum fuisse. Fulcit, quantum potest, tarn rationibus, quam 
testimoniis hanc Sabelliani dogmatis explicationem christ. 
wormivs in Historia Sabelliana. Alii vero epiphanii potissi- 
mum auctoritate ducti, contendunt, veteres mentem sabellii 
non assequutos esse; patrem, filium & Spiritum sanctum ex 
eius sensu non esse tres unius Dei diverso modo agentis appel- 
lationes ; sed patrem ipsum ab eo Deum omnis divislonis exper- 
tem vocari, filium esse nomen divinae cuiusdam virtutis a patre 
ad Christum horn in em demissae, ut salutis viam hominibus sine 
errore monstrare & miracula edere posset, Spiritum sanctum 
vocabulum esse alius radii sive virtutis naturae divinae mentes 
humanas moventis & ad Deum evehentis : Quibus positis con- 
cludunt inter noeti sententiam, uti a nobis exposita est, & Sa- 
bellianam plurimum interesse, Patripassianorum nomen non 
convenire sabellio, quippe qui minime docuerit, patrem sive 
Deum poenas passum esse, sed, virtutem tantum quamdam ex 
patre progressam homini Christo auxilium tulisse atque adfuisse, 
quum poenas nostras subiret, denique Sabellianum dogma haud 
longe distare ab eo, quod Sociniani tuentur. Ego quidem dili- 
gentissime inter se collatis & ponderatis veterum locis, sensi, 
eos quidem errare, qui Sabellianum & Noetianum dogma so- 
ciant, verum eos quoque quodammodo falli, qui negant. Patri- 
passianos nullo modo ab antiquis Sabellianos vocari potuisse, 
hosque Socinianis simillimos fuisse, ad extremum, quae epiph- 
anivs refert cum illis, quae antiquiores habent, componi, litem- 
que hanc propterea tolli posse.- — Mosheim, De Reb. Christ, p. 
689. 

Revival of SabeWanism in England. — This was owing in a 
great measure to the latudinarianism introduced at the Revolu- 
tion, which from the heretical notions of Tillotson and Burnet, 

18* 



210 



NOTES. 



developed into the Socinianism of Hoadley. A history of the 
doctrinal effects of political reformations, and the undue exer- 
cise of State influence on the Church, is still a desideratum in 
theological literature. 

Bishop Burnet's notion, approved by Archbishop Tillotson, — 
in the second of his Four Discourses on the Divinity and Death 
of Christ, (1694.) — that the divine nature inhabited Christ as 
the divine presence dwelt in the cloud, was an ominous autho- 
rization of the reviving heresy. The Word was not imper- 
sonated. In keeping with this, w as his notion respecting a per- 
son of the Trinity, when at p. 96 he describes it as a complete 
intelligent being, different but not distinct from the other two. 
There are, in the words of Tillotson, three differences in the 
Deity. In other words, the three persons are but three mani- 
festations of God ; or the same person differently considered as 
Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. — "But," in the words of 
Leslie, "we must ask if it w T as only a manifestation that was 
made flesh ! if we are baptized into the faith and worship of a 
manifestation \ Why but two or three manifestations of God, 
— are there not hundreds ] Is God or the first person one of his 
own manifestations ! Why then is he reckoned one of the 
three ! Are these three all one and the same person 1 Is this 
then the meaning of Matt. xii. 32, that " whosoever speaketh 
against one of these ONE shall be forgiven ; but wmosoever 
speaketh against another of the same one shall not be forgiven V 9 
— *' that we are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, (who is the same person with the Father,) and of the Holy 
Ghost, (who is the same person with them both)? or in the name 
of the Father, and of 'himself j and of himself I" 

The controversy respecting the import of the word person, 
countenanced by such teaching as this, and the spread of Sabel- 
lianism and Socinianism, kept pace together. Thus we find an 
author of the name of Clendon, a warm eulogist of Archbishop 
Tillotson, in a work of his, " De Persona.''' defining the word 
person as any accidental thing which distinguishes one man 
from another. " The same one man may be several persons in 
those several respects; viz., as he is a wise man he may be one 



NOTES. 



211 



person, as he is a learned man he may be another, as he is a 
religious man, another." (p. 16.) 

" And so it is also of personalities that result from dignities, 
offices, professions, employments, and the like. Her Majesty, 
the Queen of Great Britain, as she is Queen of England is one 
person ; as she is Queen of Scotland she is another person ; and 
as she is Queen of Ireland she is another person." (p. 17.) 

"And for this I think I shall need no better authority than 
M. T. Cicero, whom all must allow to be a competent judge of 
the Latin tongue; 'tis he that thus expresseth himself, viz., — 
Exuit homo personam amici, quando induit jadicis. And 
again, — Sustineo unus tres personas, mei, adversani, judicis." 
(p. 18.) 

In this way there is no limitation to the number of persons 
in the divine nature. 

Note 24, page 105. 
Taylor's History of Mahomedanism, p. 53. Gibbon also, ut 
supra. 

The Mahomedans believe the doctrine of the mira culous con- 
ception of our Saviour. The following imperfect translation 
will enable the reader to form some estimate of the respect paid 
by the Mussulmans to the name of Jesus : — 

"When cankering care and grief's fell dart 
Together agonize the heart, 
Nought can a remedy afford, 
0 Jesus, but thy gracious word ! 

Though moral death the soul invade, 
And every power be prostrate laid, 
New strength thy potent word can give, 
And bid the sinking spirit live. 

If man's weak mind itself extend 

God's mysteries to comprehend, 

Its light by thee alone is given, 

By thee its strength to soar to heaven." 

Taylor's Hist. Mahomedanism, 41, 42 



212 



NOTES. 



The Mahomedans believe that Judas was crucified in our 
Lord's stead ; that all the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin were 
deceived ; they believe in the reality of the Ascension, and that 
he will return in glory to destroy Antichrist, unite the Chris- 
tian and Mahomedan creeds, and establish the true faith. They 
hold the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin, and vene- 
rate all the Apostles but St. Paul. They appear like most of 
the Socinians, (who originally, as in the Racovian Catechism, 
gave divine honors to Christ, however subsequently they degen- 
erated into humanitarian views,) to belong to the emanative 
school of Sabellius. 

Note 25, page 105. 

The old sympathy of Socinians or Unitarians, (or as Coleridge 
has somewhere well observed, Unicitarians, from iinicas, not 
unus,) with the Church of Mahomet, remains on record in 
the letter addressed by them to the ambassador of Morocco. 
— Leslie's Works, vol. ii. 17. 

Note 26, page 105. 

Christian. A contradiction is only where two contradictions 
are predicated of the same thing, and in the same respect : — 
now I will grant you that it is a contradiction to say that three 
persons are but one person. But that three persons may be in 
one nature is no contradiction. 

Socinian Come let us be plain. Is it not a contradiction 
that three men should be but one man ] 

Chr. By man here you mean person, in which sense it is a 
contradiction ; but it is no contradiction to say that there may 
be several human persons in the same human nature. 

Soc. Why 1 A contradiction is a contradiction wherever 
it is. 

Chr. That is true. But that may not be a contradiction in 
one nature which is so in another. 

Soc. I do not understand you ; explain yourself. 

Chr. Let me ask you a question ; is it not a contradiction 
that a man should go two yards as soon as one 1 



NOTES. 



213 



Soc. Yes, surely; for two yards are but one yard and another 
yard : and I cannot go two yards till I have first gone one. 

Chr. Now open your eyes, and try if you see not what is at 
two yards' distance from you, as soon as you see what is but 
one yard from you. You see a star as soon as the top of a chim- 
ney.— Thus you see what is a contradiction to legs, is none to 
eyes nor to thought. And the reason of this is, the different 
natures of these things. — Once more : is it not a contradiction 
that yesterday should be to-day, or, that to-day should be to- 
morrow 1 For it would imply that the same thing should be 
past and not past, present and not present, present and yet to 
come. But with God all things are present ; there is no past 
or to come in eternity. Thus, what is a contradiction to time 
is none to eternity ; and what is a contradiction with men is not 
so with God. And the reason is, as I have said, the different na- 
tures of these things. — And the Divine nature being allowed on 
all hands to be incomprehensible, consequently we cannot 
charge anything as a contradiction in it, because we find it so 
in our frail nature. 

Soc. For that reason we ought not to apply to God those 
terms which are proper only to ourselves, as the word person, 
to say that there are three persons in the Godhead. — When we 
call God Father we mean that we have our being from him ; 
but not in that manner as a son is begotten by his father among 
men. 

Chr. And thus we understand the word person : as when 
Christ is called the express image of his (God's) person, we 
mean something of a quite different kind from the person of a 
man upon earth : but it is a word we must use, like the word 
Father, because we have no other word to express it by. And 
I cannot see but you have full as much reason to quarrel with 
the word Father, as the word person; they are both Scripture 
words ; — 

Soc. But is it not a contradiction that the Son should be as 
old as the Father, as you say of the Persons in the Trinity; for 
must not the cause be before the effect'? 

Chr. This is still measuring from one nature to another, — 



214 



NOTES. 



that because it is a contradiction betwixt father and son among 
men, it is so in God. But in this I can give you a plain answer, 
even from created natures which are before us : for though the 
cause must be before the effect in nature, yet not in time ; nay, 
never in time in all necessary effects. For where the effect is 
necessary to the cause, the cause cannot be without it ; and 
therefore the effect must be as early in time as the cause. Thus 
light and heat are necessary effects ot the Sun, therefore they 
must be as early in time as the Sun : and if the Sun were eter- 
nal, light and heat would be as eternal; and yet they both pro- 
ceed from the Sun. — Now it is not necessary for a man to be a 
father, else every man must be a father. But if a man could 
not be a man without being a father, then he must be father as 
soon as he was a man ; and, consequently, the son must be as 
old in time as the father, though in the order of nature he would 
come behind him, as proceeding from him, and as the effect 
follows the cause: therefore, though it cannot be in human na- 
ture that the son should be as old as his father, yet it may be in 
the Divine nature. 

Soc. That is, if the production in the Divine nature be ne- 
cessary. 

Chr. As no doubt it is; for the first cause must be a neces- 
sary being, and there can be no accidents in him. 

Soc. But God is a Spirit. Is there production or generation 
in Spirits'? 

Chr. This is still bewildering yourself with the comparison 
of a nature you do not understand, — but in the case you put, 
there is some light given to us in the contemplation of our own 
soul. In our soul we find there is a faculty of understanding 
a thing, that is, apprehending, or, as it were, seeing of it ; and 
this resembles creation, or bringing things into being, as to us; 
for what we understand not, is to us as if it were not. Then, 
when we understand a thing, and are thus in possession of it, 
we find that our soul has another faculty of remembering it, 
that is preserving its being as to us: for without this, our un- 
derstanding of anything would last no longer than the impres- 
sion of a seal upon water ; and when the thought was past, it 



NOTES. 



215 



would be gone for ever, and we could never recover it. By 
which means we could have but one thought at a time, but we 
could not compare thoughts and things, and infer or draw con- 
sequences from one to another, which we call reasoning. When 
things are thus as it were created to us by the understanding, 
and preserved by the memory; that we may reason and reflect 
upon them, then they appear either agreeable or disagreeable 
to us; and this is the operation of a distinct faculty of the mind 
which is called the will, and is the seat of happiness or misery. 
Now of these three faculties of the soul, the understanding 
may well be called the father faculty, and the memory may be 
said to be begotten by it ; for we could not remember what we 
did not first know. And the will results or proceeds from both 
of these, for we cannot love or hate what we do not both know 
and remember. 

Soc. But your parallel will not hold betwixt faculties and 
persons. 

Chr. I pretend not to prove anything by parallels, they are 
but illustrations ; nor do I think there can be any exact paral- 
lel betwixt God and any creature. 

Soc. But why do you not say three faculties instead of three 
persons in God 1 and then we should not so much quarrel with 
you. 

Chr. Because we must not alter the phrase of Scripture, 
which calls Christ the express image of his (Father's) person, 
the image of his subsistence or personality. 

Soc. How come you to make but three faculties in the soul 1 
you may make three hundred if you will. 

Chr. The faculties are the powers of the soul itself, and of 
perpetual necessity to its constitution ; so that without these 
the soul would not be a soul : therefore they are always in the 
soul. Not so of the passions. — 

— But pray let me ask you what notion have you of any Spirit, 
of an Angel 1 Can you apprehend an Angel without an un- 
derstanding, a memory, and a will? We have no nearer an 
idea of God than an omnipotent mind, and whose thoughts are 
omnipotent; therefore God must be these three, and these three 



216 



NOTES. 



are God. Our notion of his attributes are the acts of these 
three. And since there is no accident in God, but everything 
that is in him must be of his essence ; consequently these three 
are of the essence of God. So that instead of this being" a 
contradiction, it would rather be a contradiction if it were not 
so. — If it be not a revelation, it must be an invention of some 
or other; but if it be a contradiction, it could not be an inven- 
tion. For who could invent a contradiction ? or if he could, 
who would do it with a design to have it pass upon the world, 
and to be received among mankind 1 

— There is another communication beyond the communication 
of thoughts by words, and that is to communicate one's self, 
our whole nature full and entire. Since, therefore, the com- 
munication of one's nature is a perfection, it is of necessity 
that God must have it. Besides, the former argument includes 
this; for God could not communicate his thoughts, without 
communicating also his nature ; that is, he could not communi- 
cate all his thoughts except to what was capable to receive 
them : and nothing but infinite can contain infinite : and it be- 
ing natural to goodness to delight in communicating itself, con- 
sequently God must be deprived of the plenitude of this per- 
fection, if there were not a person capable of receiving all his 
goodness ; and thus, unless there were different persons in God, 
there would be a contradiction to all his attributes. There 
would be infinite power without power to exert itself infi- 
nitely. — 

Soc. But if the Divine nature should repeat this production 
of persons, then you might have as many persons in the Divine 
nature as in the human, and consequently as many Gods as 
men. 

Chr. Your conception is gross. For first, three persons in 
the Divine nature do not make three Gods, more than three fa- 
culties make three souls. But secondly, there cannot be ano- 
ther production in the Divine nature more than there can be 
another Divine nature. For the three persons are of the es- 
sence of the Divine nature as the three faculties are of the 
soul, therefore unchangeable and unalterable. And as to the 



NOTE?. 



217 



arguments I have proceeded upon, of infinite communication 
from one to another, if it be infinite it can be no more, and to 
infinite production nothing can be added. God's unity is the 
most perfect of all unity. But in every unity there is an union 
of something, and that must be of divers things, for there is no 
union of one. We say not that one soul is multiplied or di- 
vided amongst its three faculties, or that it is compounded of 
them. These powers of the soul bear a nearer resemblance to 
the Persons of God, which are essential to the Godhead, with- 
out which it could not act, — yet these persons are not parts of 
God, nor is he compounded of them, or either multiplied or di- 
vided amongst them ; but the whole Deity, flowing perpetually 
in its full infinity from one Person to another, is in the eternal 

enjoyment of its own beatitude blessed for ever in itself. 

Leslie's Works, — Dialogues with a Socinian. 



CHAPTER V. 

Note 1, page 125. 
How utterly uncertain are the facts, and the alleged dates of 
the supposed facts connected with the grant of the title of 
" Universal Bishop," said to have been made by the Emperor 
Phocas to Boniface III., and which form the sole basis of the 
Antichristo-popish theory of interpretation, may be seen in 
Hal lam. — History of Europe, Middle Ages, vol. 2, p. 230, cap. 
vii. n. f 

Note 2, page 130. 
" The very sight (mentally of Christ) has acted otherwise on 
the mind of a weak sister; and the very keenness of her faith, 
and wild desire of approaching the object of her faith, has led 
her to fancy or to feign that she has received that singular favor 
voucbsafed only to a few elect souls; and she points to God's 
wounds as imprinted on her hands, and feet, and side, though 

19 



218 



NOTES. 



she herself has been instrumental in their formation." — New- 
man's Led. on Difficulties felt by Anglicans, l. ix. 

Note 3, page 130. 
See the reading restored in Tischendorf on St. Matt, xxvii. 17. 

Note 4, page 133. 
Duo cornua episcopalis dignitatis, puta mitrse sive infulse 
(haec enim est bicornis) insigne sunt. Videtur ergo quod hie 
pseudo-propheta erit episcopus quispiam apostata et simulator 
religionis. — Acosta Be temp. Noviss. l. ii. c. 17. (The author 
was a Papist ) 

Sexta et ultima nota falsi Prophetse sub N. T. est imminutio 
glorise Jesu Christi, quas fit per abnegationem divinitatis ejus, 
per substitutionem novas humanitatis, et per associationem alte- 
rius Mediatoris, Regis, Pontificis, Doctorisque falli et fallere 
nescii. — Gutleri System Theolog. Proph. cap. 3. p. 41 — 51, 
quoted in Bp. Van Milder? s Boyle Lectures, vol. ii. App. p. 
546. 

Note 5, page 134. 
The false Church, or the second beast, will give, not life, but 
breath, to the image of its God. (Rev. xiii. 15.) The Church 
of Rome has done everything but this for its favorite idols. 

Note 6, page 135. 
Mahomet and Cromwell were each welcomed as Messiah by 
the Jews. — That people obtained very great favors from Napo- 
leon. 



FIRST HOMILY. 

Note 1, page 154. 

Things non-essential become essential when they are made 
the plea for fresh or continued separation. Nothing of itself 
could be a more indifferent matter than the subject discussed 



NOTES. 



219 



by the Apostle (1 Cor. xi. 5, of. Rom. xvi. 17,) where a refusal 
to obey the Apostle's directions would have caused, in the first 
place, a schism, and subsequently, it may be, much immorality. 
Thus the refusal to approve the few decent usages of the An- 
glican Clergy, has caused separation from the Church ; and on 
the loss of Creeds and Liturgy, there has followed close a wide 
diffusion of profanity and blasphemy. It is not correct, there- 
fore, to say, that the separatists and the Church agree in essen- 
tials ; because, from the very nature of the case, it is impossi- 
ble to determine what essentials are. And it is obvious, that if 
matters indifferent are the only excuses for separation, the 
greater the guilt of division. If it be asserted that all essen- 
tials are summed up in the doctrine of the Trinity, and the re-> 
cognition of the Holy Scriptures as the alone standards of doc- 
trine, — with regard to the former, the Church does not know 
what dissenting bodies hold it with her; it is a question whether 
dissenting bodies themselves know whether they hold it or not; 
they make no public or stated profession of it ; and they abo- 
minate the formularies in which it is contained. If the follow- 
ers of Wesley accept the traditions of their second great mas- 
ter, Dr. Adam Clarke, they are Arians ; if the followers of Knox 
and Calvin have developed in Scotland as in Ireland, England, 
and Geneva, they are maintainers, in a great part, of the Soci- 
nian blasphemy. As to the Holy Scriptures, the differences 
are too great as to the interpretation of them, and the recogni- 
tion of their inspiration, to permit of their being mentioned as 
a neutral ground. 

Note 2, page 156. 
Should a sincere Independent object to his communion that 
there is no authority for admitting women to the Eucharist, no 
command in Scripture to baptize them, it would be not only his 
privilege, but his duty, according to the principles of dissent, to 
found a new Church, where these unscriptural customs would 
have no existence. For, plainly, with regard to the latter point, 
the circumstance, which has no parallel, Acts xvi. 15, is, if not 
an interpolation, a mis-reading ; Ttaj, all, should be read for xat, 



220 



NOTES. 



(See Teschendorf 's Ed. in loco,) — " when all her house," i. e. 
her male slaves and dependants " were baptized." As unmar- 
ried women are nowhere else alluded to as baptized, why here? 
The women (Acts viii. 12,) were wives. 

It is in this manner texts are evaded by dissenters. Thus 
Dr. Davidson in his critical work on the New Testament, pro- 
nounces the words " and baptized" (St. Mark xvi. 16,) very 
suspicious ; they seem, he says, to be taken from St. Matt, 
xxviii. 19 ; " but the insertion of the clause In this place, in 
its present form, is not warranted by any other passage of the 
New Testament. It reminds us of the post-apostolic period, 
when a greater efficacy was attributed to baptism than it was 
intended to have." 

Note 3, page 15S. 
It was a remark made more than a hundred years ago, that 
the word hiereus, or sacred person, is never applied in the 
New Testament to the Christian Minister. Nowadays, as there 
is nothing new under the sun, if mention is made, in words ap- 
proved by Baxter, of the Christian Priesthood, one is like to be 
told that there is no such thing, because the word hiereus is 
never applied to the Apostles. That the Church applies the 
word to the second order of Ministers is plain, from both the 
Prayer Book at large, and the Articles. (See title of xxxn. 
Art. De Conjugio Sacerdotum.) Good reason can be given 
why the term is not applied to Christ by the Evangelists, or St. 
Paul when writing in his own name, or, subsequently, by the 
inspired writers to themselves and their fellow-laborers. The 
Jewish Priesthood still existed, and the express term_HiEREUs 
was sparingly employed even of Christ, because the use of it 
would only have embittered Jewish prejudices, The same re- 
mark holds true of the Lord's Day, not so named in earlier 
writings than St. John's. The objection, however, will prove too 
much, Is not God the Holy Ghost, God, and God the Son, God- 
Man] though neither are ever expressly named so in the Scrip- 
tures, the thing is asserted perpetually of both. Thus, though 
the very word Priest is not used, the whole sacrificial vocabu- 



NOTES. 



221 



lary is exhausted in the description of the functions of the Chris- 
tian Ministry. The 44 Do This" in the Sacramental institution, 
is as close a representation of 44 Offer this sacrifice" as the 
language it was spoken in could furnish. It may be objected, 
indeed, that the sacrifice is but a commemoration of a sacrifice; 
but even so of the reality of the offering there can be no doubt. 
It is the same as the offering of Melchisedek ; and if he never 
offered aught else than bread and wine, he would be neverthe- 
less a 44 Priest of the Most High God." If there were no such 
offering at all, the Christian Minister would nevertheless be a 
Priest, like his Lord and Master, who is now our High Priest ; 
and who, notwithstanding, only presents prayers and the me- 
morials of his agony to the Father. 44 Consider the Apostle 
and High Priest of our profession," says St. Paul. (Heb. iii. 1.) 
The higher term — 44 Apostle" — employed here is freely con- 
ceded to the Minister of Christ now ; yet the inferior, but more 
essential, is denied. But the fact is, that so long as there are 
Ministers to direct the prayers and praises of Christians, and 
administer the Sacraments, so long will there be in reality 
Priests ; for the word imports no more. If, however, the New 
Testament is so reserved as to the term Priest, not so the Old. 
Is. Ixvi. 24, contains a promise how the Lord would take of the 
Gentiles for priests and Levites. And again, (Mai. i. ii.) 
where ihe Prophet has generally been understood to refer in 
the peace offering to the oblation of the bread and wine in the 
Eucharist ; a twofold oblation, before consecration as a gift to 
God ; after, as the memorial showing forth the death of Christ. 
The same coyness as to the use of the word Priest, exists as to 
the word Altar. Persons stickle to use the term, and insist on 
the phrase, holy table ; as if thus they evaded acknowledging a 
bloody sacrifice. But the altar of the temple is so named fre- 
quently in the Bible, (Ezek. xli. 22, xliv. 16. Mai. i. 7, 12); 
so that nothing is gained as to truth by the phrase adopted. 
Then, as well as now, when the Priest sacrificed, all the con- 
gregation were said to do the same ; or rather, the latter alone 
killed the victim, the slaying not of necessity attaching to the 
Priestly office. 

19* 



222 



NOTES. 



Scripture gives us the definition of a Priest, " one taken from 
among men," and "ordained for men in things pertaining to 
God." Such is the Christian Priest. " A sacrifice is a reli- 
gious action" — (so Hickes defines it, Treatises, vol. ii. 167,) — 
" (or operation) of a Priest, ordinary or extraordinary, by which 
a gift brought is solemnly offered according to the rites and ob- 
servances of any religion, in, before, at, or upon any place, unto 
any God, to honor and worship him, and thereby acknowledge 
him to be God and Lord." (See also Mede's "Christian Sa- 
crifice.") 

Such are the prayers, praises, alms, offerings, and the Holy 
Eucharist, as administered by the Christian Priesthood, to 
whom, as stewards of the mysteries, such, ministration is re- 
stricted. I have dwelt the longer upon this point, because 
from some experience of the Irish Papists, I have observed ihat 
their reverence for their Ministry, (and it may be also their 
belief in transubstantiation,) is bound up very much with their 
unquestioned monopoly of that term which the Scriptures and 
the usage of the Church has appropriated to the Ministers of 
God. 

Note 4, page 159. 

Nothing can be plainer than that the English Church regards 
those only as Ministers who have episcopal ordination. An 
endeavor to conciliate dissenters has been made, by disavowing 
this. Were this disavowal founded on truth, the dissenters 
would not be conciliated. What they dislike, is not so much 
this or that doctrine, but the moral position of the Church ; 
and they justly regard with suspicion and distrust those who 
profess a sympathy which never has been and never can be re- 
duced to practice. 

I have heard it gravely urged, that the question of Infant 
Baptism has been also left open, because an office for adults is 
to be found in the Prayer Book. Now if this question is in 
reality determined, how much more the other 7 

But do the British Churches leave the question of Orders 
open ? If they do, they are the guiltiest communions in 



NOTES. 



223 



Christendom, for opposing in a matter indifferent the insur- 
mountable impediments which they do oppose to communion 
with separatists. I shall briefly review the statements of the 
Church on this subject, in her Prayer Book and Articles ; pre- 
mising only this — 

1, So far as separatists in the appointment of their ministers 
comply with the teaching of the Bible, and the usage of the 
Apostles, so far must these be recognized as not laymen. I 
refer to the appointment of the people, in conformity with Acts 
vi. 3. They require no other ordination. What the uncanon- 
ical Books are to the Bible, they are to the apostolic ministry ; 
for the most part consentient with that which is appointed, 
often replete with wisdom and piety, but still apocryphal and 
unauthorized. 

2. But this granted, it is unreasonable to suppose that great 
names can justify what is in all other respects a false position. 
The piety, the zealous devotion, perhaps the learning, of Chal- 
mers, Hall, and Clarke, (the disciple of that incomparable 
genius and illustrious man, John Wesley,) or, to name a very 
different character, equal in some, superior in other gifts — 
Schleiermacher, — could not supply what was wanting to their 
commissions ; surely no more than the genius of Newton could 
compensate for his heresy. The former were no more Presby- 
ters of the Church, than the latter, as superior perhaps to them 
all in simplicity and pious intention of mind as he was in every 
other gift, was a believer in the Catholic Faith. 

The Preface to the Ordinal says — 

" It is evident to all men diligently reading the Holy Scrip- 
tures and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' time there 
have been three orders of ministers in Christ's Church, Bishops, 
Priests, and Deacons." 

The Church of Christ, therefore, (not any branch of it,) has 
ever regarded this threefold ministry as of Divine Apostolical 
and so perpetual authority : understanding those texts in an 
Episcopal sense, which separatists otherwise expound. What 
the Church is, which thus holds, the XlXth Article defines. 
" The congregation of the faithful, [/. e. those professing the 



224 



NOTES. 



Christian religion,] in the which the pure word of God is 
preached, and the Sacraments be duly administered according 
to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are 
requisite for the same" 

Among these things " of necessity requisite," must be men- 
tioned a lawful (i. e. of divine law) ministry. For as (Art. 
XX.) " it is not lawful for the Church, [Catholic, as before,] to 
ordain anything that is contrary to God's word written," so "it 
is not lawful (Art. XXIII.) for any man to take upon him 
(Heb. v. 4,) the office of public teaching, or ministering the 
Sacraments in the congregation, before he be lawfully called 
and sent," (i. e. as the divine law appoints,) and this he will 
be when chosen and called to the work by men (no merely 
internal suggestion is sufficient,) who have public authority 
given unto them in (not by) the congregation, to call and send 
ministers into the Lord's vineyard." 

The particluar form in which those orders (which are alone 
lawful, that is, Scriptural, Apostolic, and Divine.) are conveyed 
in the British Churches, in cases where there has not been a 
previous Episcopal ordination, forms the subject of the XXXII. 
Art. and the concluding clause of the first paragraph in the 
preface to the Ordinal. 

With regard to the question of the Apostolical succession, 
(the difficulties in which are like those which attach to the 
Scriptures themselves,) it may be said that all bodies of Chris- 
tians maintain an Apostolical succession in some sense ; as 
indeed reason would lead them to do. The popular notion is a 
succession of doctrine, which, in one meaning of the phrase, is 
a lamentable truth among its professors. Another theory is, 
that without the interlinking, through orders, of one spiritual 
generation with another, there have always been Bishops, 
Priests, and Deacons. Strange that this should be termed a 
succession at all. Whatever difficulties respecting proofs may 
attach to the doctrine properly so called, they exist with equal 
force against this theory. It is not correct to represent any 
minister's pedigree as running in a single episcopal chain from 
the Apostles. It is not too much to say, that tens of hundred 



NOTES. 



225 



different lines, " inveterately convolved" and " intertwined," 
secure to us our spiritual lineage. There is some lack of con- 
scientiousness, therefore, in the objections — "if one link be 
lost," — or, that no proof can be given. The very bias of the 
middle ages, admitted on all hands as tending to preserve and 
uphold forms and ceremonies, would of itself induce belief, that 
in a matter of so admittedly great importance, all would be 
duly done. 

This should always be borne in mind, that the truth of the 
Apostolical succession rests on the highest moral evidence ; 
that as the channel of the Divine life, the integrity of the mi- 
nisterial line is an essential part of the greatest fact in all 
history ; that the failure of links is an assumption warranted 
by not a single example ; and directly contravening all histo- 
rical testimony. If there be no transmitted authority, Christ's 
promise has failed, (St. Matt, xxviii. 20,) and his servants have 
no authority whatever. It is this authority by which the mis- 
sionary claims to speak to the conscience of man, which is 
struck at when the doctrine now considered is denied. That 
authority, whether named sacerdotalism, priestcraft, or elder- 
craft, dissenting teachers affect as zealously, and are as much 
interested in maintaining (and do in fact maintain as fully) as 
the pastors of the Church. The lofty claims of the ministry 
are not asserted with more acrimonious vigor — something of 
this sort is ever imputed — by the Catholic priesthood, than pre- 
vails in the tabernacles of Muggleton, Knox, Wesley, Robinson, 
or Smith ; the last two the founders respectively of Indepen- 
dentism and Mormonism ; of which the former has done for the 
Church, what the latter has done for the Church's type, the 
marriage contract. Indeed, it will be found, on examination, 
that the less the authority, the more absolute the rule. 

I will endeavor to remove certain popular objections, 

irrespective of Scriptural or ecclesiastical testimony, which not 
only avail to prejudge the question, and to prevent men from 
making an impartial examination of the grounds on which it 
rests, but also have a still more fatal effect, in that they incline 



226 



NOTES. 



men, if perchance they do enter into the examination, to do 
violence to the conviction of their own minds, and to set aside 
the impression conveyed by the testimony, under the idea that 
there must be something essentially wrong in the Episcopal 
scheme itself. 

§ 1. Objection I. The Episcopal scheme is uncharitable, for 
it condemns all others. 

Answer, As charity aims, or should aim, at the welfare of 
mankind, and as the welfare of men is inseparably involved in 
their reception of and adherence to the truth, it follows that 
that which is most true, must be most charitable. The only 
question, then, is, whether the Episcopal scheme is true ; if so, 
charity requires that we should teach it, and forbids our keep- 
ing it back. 

5 2. Objection II. But it is exclusive, therefore it must be 
untrue. 

Answer. 1. As truth is one and not manifold, the exclusive- 
ness of the scheme is, at first sight, an argument in favor of its 
being true. 

Answer 2. As the Christian religion, of which Episcopacy 
professes to be a tenet, is itself exclusive, "I am God, and 
there is none else ;" " no man cometh unto the Father but by 
me;" "neither is there salvation in any other;" "there is 
none other name under heaven given among men whereby we 
must be saved;" — the exclusiveness of Episcopacy makes in 
favor of its being a genuine Christian doctrine ; and as there 
is to Christians not only " one (only) Lord, and one (only) 
God," but also "one (only) Faith, and one (only) Baptism," 
the exclusiveness of that which professes to be an article of this 
one Faith, and to be the authority for that one Baptism, affords 
a prima facie probability of its being a genuine article of that 
one Faith, and the true authority for that one Baptism. 

It is, I believe, chiefly, if not wholly, on account of the exclu- 
siveness of the doctrine that we who maintain it are exposed 
to hatred and reviling ; and if we may judge from the language 
of our revilers, shall have to endure persecution, If it shall be 
in their power to inflict it. If we would be content to teach 



NOTES. 



227 



Episcopacy as one among many schemes equally true or equally 
doubtful, it should seem, from their latest writings, that we 
should not be disturbed; but because we teach it, as the Scrip- 
tures and the Church have delivered it to us, exclusively, there- 
fore the world hateth us. Just so, if the early Christians could 
have been content to profess their religion, as one of the six 
hundred tolerated by heathen Rome, and had been liberal 
enough, according to the modern abuse of the term, to regard 
all religion as pretty much alike, they would have no need to 
endure the cross, the stake, or the teeth of wild beasts : but 
because they taught their religion, as the Scriptures and the 
Church had delivered it to them, exclusively, therefore the 
world hated them. While, therefore, the charge of exclusive- 
ness is an argument in our favor against whom it is brought, 
seeing that we bear it in common with the primitive martyrs ; 
it is an argument against those who bring it, seeing that they 
do so, in common with the very heathen. 

Objection 3. But you hold it in common with the Papists, 
therefore it must be Popish and unchristian. 

Answer 1. This is an old devise of the Papists, to weaken 
the hands of the defenders of the Church of England, the great 
bulwark of Protestantism, by contriving to raise up imputations 
of Popery against them, that by thus confounding in men's 
minds the distinctions between Catholic and Roman Catholic, 
they may beguile them to the latter, under pretence of the 
former : or may lead them through aversion to the latter, to 
cast off some portions of the former, and so render themselves 
open to reproof; or, at any rate, may weaken and divide the 
Catholic opposers of Popery, by infusing among them doubts, 
and suspicions, and jealousies. One main instrument made use 
of by the Papists, in former days, for this purpose, was the dis- 
senting pulpits. In the 16th Century, one Cummin, a friar, 
contrived to be taken into the Puritans' pulpits, where, as he 
stated at the councils, " I preached against set forms of prayer, 
and I called English prayers English mass, and have per- 
suaded several to pray spiritually and extempore ; and this 
hath so taken with the people, that the Church of England is 



228 



NOTES. 



become as odious to that sort of people whom I instructed, as 
the mass is to the Church of England, and this will be a 
stumbling block to that Church as long as it is a Church." 
For this the Pope commended him, and gave him a reward of 
2000 ducats for his good service. Are there not many of the 
present day, of whom, if they were to apply to the Pope for a 
reward on the same score, all the world could witness that 
they have well deserved it at his hands'? Surely our oppo- 
nents have some reason to feel misgiving, when they find them- 
selves thus treading in the footsteps, of the heathen revilers of 
Christianity, and of the Popish hireling underminers of the 
bulwark of Protestantism. 

Answer 2. The question is not, whether the doctrine be held 
by Papists, but whether it be Scriptural. If it be Scriptural, of 
which I hope to afford reasonable proof, then either we must be 
content to hold it, as we do many other things, e. g. the Creed, 
the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, in common with 
the Papists, or we must be content to acknowledge the Popish 
religion to be, in this respect, more Scriptural than our own. 
This, I, for one, am not prepared to do ; and therefore believing 
the doctrine of the Apostolic succession to be Catholic and 
Scriptural, will never so far betray the cause of truth, as to 
consent to surrender it to the sole use of the erroneous Papists. 

Objection 4. But it is not merely Popish, it is Judaical, and 
therefore must be unchristian. 

Answer. As our Lord instituted the Sacrament of Holy Bap- 
tism in a Jewish rite, namely, in the washing wherewith the 
Jews admitted proselytes ; and instituted the Sacrament of the 
Holy Eucharist or Lord's Supper in a Jewish rite, namely, in 
the Mincha, or bread and drink offering ; in each case exalting 
a carnal ordinance into a means of spiritual gift or grace : it is 
rather an argument in favor of our doctrine than otherwise, 
that it finds for the Christian Ministry, the dispensers of these 
sacraments, a prototype in the Jewish dispensation like that 
which we find for the sacraments themselves. Accordingly, 
St. Clement of Rome, and St. Jerome (whom especially I cite, 
because especially appealed to by our opponents) both concur 



NOTES. 



229 



in speaking of the orders of Christian Ministry under the very 
terms, (High Priests, Priests, and Levites,) which obtained 
under the Mosaic dispensation. And with this agree the say- 
ings of the Apostles. " Ye are a royal Priesthood," said St. 
Peter, addressing the Christian Churches in the very language 
which Moses had used toward the Israelites. Compare 1 Pet. 
ii. 9, with Exodus xix. 6. "Christ hath made us Kings and 
Priests unto God and his Father," saith St. John. " The Priest- 
hood is changed," saith St. Paul, not destroyed. But if there 
be a Priesthood upon earth, as all these bear witness that there 
is, and as the Prophets had foretold there should be, in the 
Christian Church, then what is there to hinder distinction of 
orders in the priesthood? 

§ 5. Objection 5. But are not these sayings of our Lord, "Be 
not ye called Rabbi; for one is your Master, even Christ; and 
all ye are brethren ; and call no man your father upon earth, 
for one is your Father which is in Heaven. Neither be ye 
called masters, for one is your Master, even Christ. But he 
that is greatest among you shall be your servant." " Ye know 
that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles 
exercise lordship over them, and their great ones exercise 
authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you : but 
whosoever will be great among you let him be your minister : 
and whosoever will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 
For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but 
to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." — Are not 
these sayings directly subversive of all claims on the part of 
the Christian ministry, to authority and degree ] 

Answer 1. The best comment on the texts will be furnished 
by the lives of those to whom they were addressed, even the 
Apostles of Christ. If we find them exercising the authority 
of fathers and rulers over the Christian flock, as the Epistles of 
St. John, St. Peter, and St. Jude (who were of those imme- 
diately addressed), and the Epistles of St. Paul (who was after- 
wards admitted to the same office), distinctly show, then one 
of two things must follow, namely either, that all these were 
Judaizers and Antichrists ; which terms the irreverence of the 



20 



280 



NOTES, 



of the present age has not. as yet I think, applied to the Apostles 
themselves, though it has freel) r done so to their companions 
and commended disciples, St. Clement and Ignatius: or else, 
that the texts do not really furnish the objection supposed by 
those who urge them : which will, probably, be the more readily 
admitted, when it is consideied, that immediately after utter- 
ing these words of reproof to the Apostles, our Lord added, 
" I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed 
unto me." 

Answer 2. The very words of the texts refute the objections 
which our opponents ground up <n them; for they unite in 
showing that the only way authorized by Christ, to dignity and 
exaltation in His Church, is by discharging the offices of the 
ministry, and thus serving the Christian people. 44 Whosoever 
will be great among you, let him be your minister ; and who- 
soever will be chief among you, let him be your servant." Nor 
is it possible to see how men can b^ more truly the servants of 
others, than the Christian ministers are of the people com- 
mitted to their charge ; seeing that they are bound to wait 
upon them, and minister to their wants, whether they be high 
or low, rich or poor ; not only when they assemble as guests in 
the courts of their Master's house, but also at their own houses. 
They are the servants of those with whom the greater part of 
our revilers would think it scorn to come in contact. The 
poorest beggars, the foulest sinners, in the most noisome dwell- 
ings, and under the most loathsome diseases, may command 
the attendance of the ministers of the Church, who are under 
a vow to afford it ; and count it a privilege and a happiness to 
do so, if they may hope to save a soul from death. But they 
who are thus ordained to minister to the wants of Christ's 
household are said by Him to be rulers over it. " Who then is 
that faithful and wise servant, whom the Lord hath made ruler 
over his household, to give them meat in due season." 

Objection 6. But the doctrine was unknown to, or unnoticed 
by, our Protestant Fathers [z. e. the Divines who in the six- 
teenth century opposed the Church of Rome], and therefore we 
Protestants need not concern ourselves about it. 



NOTES. 



231 



Answer 1. The Divines of the sixteenth century were 
neither the founders of the Christian Church, nor the writers 
of the Sacred Scriptures; and therefore, neither the Scriptures 
nor the Church are to be tried by tiiem, but they and their doc- 
trine are to be tried by the testimony of the Scriptures, and by 
the voice of the Church. To these ihey appealed ; by these in 
their lifetimes they claimed to be tried. If, therefore, it could 
be shown, that in any instances, through defective information, 
or through the provocation occasioned by the Papal abuses of 
true doctrine, or through any other cause, they omitted any 
point of doctrine which can be clearly shown to be Scriptural 
and Catholic; we have the sanction of their solemn and re- 
iterated appeals for making good their unintentional defects; and 
must be convinced that men would be acting most contrary to 
their intention, if, on the plea of personal regard to them, they 
should assist in either breaking ofT, or preventing the restora- 
tion of, any particle of Scriptural, Catholic, and Christian truth. 

Answer 2. Nothing can be more contrary to the truth, as 
far as the Church of England is concerned, than the allegation 
which forms the ground of this objection, namely, that our Pro- 
testant fathers, in the sixteenth century, were either ignorant 
or unmindful of this doctrine, as the following document will 
show. In 1538, Henry VIII. we have the following statement 
signed by Cranmer, Latimer, and Shaxton, and some other of 
the Reforming divines, in common with Stokesly, Tonstall, 
Sampson, and others, who in many things adhered to the Papal 
errors. "Christ and his Apostles did institute and ordain in 
the New Testament certain ministers or officers, which shovld 
bear spiritual power, authority, and commission under Christ, 
to preach and teach the word of God unto His people; to dis- 
pense and administer the Sacraments of God unto them, and 
by the same to confer and give the grace of the Holy Ghost; 
to consecrate the blessed body of Christ in the Sacrament of 
the altar; to loose and absoil from sin all persons which be 
duly penitent and sorry for the same; to bind and excommu- 
nicate such as be guilty in manifest crimes and sins, and will 
not amend their defaults ; to order and consecrate others in the 



232 



NOTES. 



same room, order, and office, tbhereurtfo they be called and ad- 
mitted themselves This office, this power and authorit} r , 

was committed and given by Christ and his Apostles, unto cer- 
tain persons only, that is to say, unto Priests or Bishops, whom 
they did elect, call, and admit thereunto by their prayer and 

imposition of their hands The invisible gift or grace 

conferred in this Sacrament is nothing else but the power, office, 
and authority before-mentioned ; the visible and outward sign 
is the prayer and imposition of the Bishopi's hands, upon the 
person which receiveth the said gift of grace. And to the 
intent the Church of Christ should never be destituted of such 
ministers, as should have and execute the said power of the 
keys ; it was also ordained and commanded by the Apostles, 
that the same Sacrament [of orders] should be applied and, 
ministered by the Bishop from time to time, and unto such 
other persons as had the qualities, which the Apostles very 
diligently describe, as it appeareth in the first Epistle of St. 
Paul to Timothy, and his Epistle to Titus." 

In 1548, Edw. VL, we find the following statement put forth 
by the authority of Cranmer, in a sermon on the Power of the 
Keys. " The ministration of God's word, which our Lord 
Jesus Christ himself at first did institute, teas derived from the 
Apostles unto others after them, by imposition of hands, and 
giving the Holy Ghost, from the Apostles'* time to our days. 
And this was the consecration, orders, and unction of the 
Apostles, whereby they, at the beginning, made Bishops and 
Priests, and this shall continue in the Church even to the 
world's end." 

Lastly, in 1558-9, Elizabeth, we find the following eminent 
Divines, Scory, Bishop of Chichester; Grindal, afterwards 
Archbishop of Canterbury; Cox, afterwards Bishop of Ely; 
Elmer, afterwards Bishop of London ; Guest, afterwards 
Bishop Rochester; Jewell, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury; 
and Horn, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, who was the 
mouth-piece of the party, Divines selected to conduct the Pro- 
testant Controversy, maintaining, in the Council Chamber at a 
conference with the Papists, this assertion, 



NOTES. 



233 



"The Apostles' authority is derived upon after ages, 
and conveyed to the Bishops their successors." 

5 7. Objection 7. Though the principle be admitted, yet there 
is " no sufficient historic evidence of a personal succession of 
valid Episcopal ordinations." 

Answer 1. If nothing will satisfy men but actual demonstra- 
tion, I yield at once: neither this nor any succession in the 
whole world, can be actually demonstrated. But if probable 
evidence, such as can be adduced in behalf of no other succes- 
sion, may be deemed sufficient for all who are willing to walk 
by faith and not by sight, such evidence I will venture to pre- 
sent. If it be a moral impossibility that any man, who h;id not 
been duly consecrated, could be accounted a Bishop of the 
Church of England at the present time, then the onus rests 
upon the objectors to say how that, which is morally impossible 
now, could have been morally possible at any other period ; see- 
ing that the same rules which regulate this matter have ever 
obtained in the Church ; rules recognizing the Bishops only as 
vested with power to ordain; and seeing that no one point of 
ecclesiastical regulation was more jealously guarded than this. 
The rule of the Church of the first three centuries we have 
before seen — " Let a Bishop be ordained by two or three other 
Bishops," a rule so universally received, that we find it re- 
peated not only in general councils, as at Nice, "A Bishop 
ought to be constituted by all the Bishops of the province, but 
if this be not practicable by reason of urgent necessity, three 
must by all means meet together, and with the consent of those 
that are absent, let them perform the ordination but repeated 
in the provincial regulations of every Church, the British, the 
Gallican, the Spanish, the Roman, the Carthaginian, the Alex- 
andrian, the Antiochian and the rest. And when, by any pressing 
necessity, it fell that a Bishop was consecrated by less than three 
Bishops, the discussions to which it gave rise sufficiently show 
how keenly alive the Church has in all ages been to this point; 
and therefore how morally impossible it is that in any a^e a man 
could have been received and allowed as a Bishop, who had not 
been ordained by Bishops. So that though it may be a matter 

20* 



234 



NOTES 



of curiosity for a man to trace up the lists of Archbishops of 
Canterbury, or Bishops of any other see, and thence, upwards, 
the lists of the Bishops of Rome, or of Aries, of Lyons, or of 
any other Church, concerned in conferring orders on any of our 
Bishops, it is only of moment so far, namely, as proving that 
these were always Episcopal Churches, and therefore that it 
was morally impossible that any man should be accounted a 
Bishop by them, if he were not ordained by Bishops. And 
therefore whether, for instance, Clement was the first, or the 
second, or the third Bishop of Rome, is perfectly irrelevant ; 
the very discussion sufficiently testifying that during all that 
time Rome was governed by Bishops. If the objectors can 
show reason for supposing that at any given time, any of the 
Churches through which we trace our orders, was governed by 
those who had not received Episcopal orders, the objection will 
be worthy of attention. But as long as this cannot be done, 
the objection is crushed by the weight of the moral impossibility 
which is opposed to it. 

Answer 2. Strong as the evidence in favor of the succession 
having been preserved is thus shown to be, when viewed abso- 
lutely, its strength will appear immensely increased, when 
viewed in comparison with that upon the force of which men 
are content to admit any other succession. Take, for instance, 
the succession of the Aaronic Priesthood, which was transmit- 
ted by carnal descent ; on what, and on what only, did the 
truth of that succession depend ? simply, in each descent, upon 
the single word of a woman, as to a point of which no human 
being besides herself could have any certain knowledge. The 
Aaronic Priesthood was propagated in secret: depending in 
every step upon the fidelity of a single witness, a woman, the 
case admitting of no other certain evidence. The Christian 
Priesthood is propagated in public, transacted by many persons, 
in the presence of many icitnesses. Yet the former is received 
without exception, the latter is excepted against. What is this 
but the spirit of wilful scepticism 1 

Objection 8. But many of the individuals, through whom 
you must trace the commission, were men of corrupt life and 



NOTES. 



235 



conversation, and even unsound in doctrine; a commission 
traced through such persons must, surely, be worthless. 

Answer. Is earthly gold rendered worthless by passing 
through soiled hands 1 if not, why should heavenly treasure 
be] Is a king's commission rendered void, by reason of the 
unworthiness of the person on whom it is bestowed? e. g. a 
profligate magistrate, or a dishonest counsellor 1 if not, why 
should God's commission be 1 Let the objectors further consi- 
der this, that as the Holy promised Seed of salvation was nei- 
ther tainted nor destroyed by passing through the meretricious 
womb of Rahab, and the incestuous womb of Thamar, so nei- 
ther can it in reason be supposed that the spiritual seed for the 
ministration of that salvation, has suffered injury, because some 
of the agents for transmitting it have shown themselves as un- 
worthy the high honor vouchsafed to them, as those pointed out 
in the former succession. Before the objection can be main- 
tained, it must be shown that Judas, who was known to be the 
son of perdition from the beginning, and was a traitor, mur- 
derer, and thief, was not an Apostle ; whereas not only did our 
Lord so call him, and so employ him, but "his Bishoprick" was 
not filled up till after his death. 

Objection 9. But the doctrine, at any rate, is of no impor- 
tance, and therefore you do ill to insist upon it ? 

Answer. If it be a part of God's truth, no man living can 
possibly tell the extent of its importance. But this all men can 
see, that, as in the affairs of this world, it is of importance to 
know that a magistrate, or a herald, or an ambassador has been 
duly appointed, sent, and accredited, by the king in whose name 
he speaks ; and that, among private individuals, one who acts 
in the behalf of another has been authorized by his power of 
attorney ; so, if there be any meaning in the term, 44 Ministry 
of Reconciliation," applied by St. Paul to the office of the Chris- 
tian Clergy, it must be of the deepest importance to know, that 
it has been truly committed to those who profess to exercise it : 
important indeed, if it be admitted to be even possible [which 
who can deny?] that men's interest in the kingdom of Christ, 
and covenant claim to its privileges, may be in the remotest 



236 



NOTES. 



degree affected by the insufficient appointment of those who 
administer the sacramental seals, tokens, means, pledges, let 
men choose what term they like best, of the covenant. — Perce- 
vaVs Apology cm the Apostolical Succession, pp. 60—86. 

The image of an apostolic chain is unhappy; because it pre- 
sents to the mind the idea of the connection depending upon a 
single link ; the very reverse of which is the truth. Rather 
(as in the excellent Remarks on the Apostolic Succession, in 
Tracts on Church Principles, Masters :) we should employ the 
image of the continued and diffused succession of the meshes 
of a net ; an illustration which has this in its favor, that it is 
the legitimate development of the Redeemer's own metaphor. 
(St. Matt. xiii. 47.) 

Note 5, page 164. 
This discourse was delivered before the administration of the 
Holy Communion. 



SECOXD HOMILY. 

Note 1, page 165. 
This discourse was delivered on Easter Eve, 1S5'2, and pub- 
lished in a separate form, under the title, The Church Requi- 
escent. 

Note 2, page 169. 

The word sheol occurs 60 times in the Old Testament, and 
by the LXX. is rendered 59 times hades, once by a word re- 
presenting death; thus it never was accounted equivalent to 
grave. 

Note 3, page 176. 
Rev. ii. 7. The tree of the life, i. e. Christ's life, and thus 
probably distinct from that mentioned Rev. xxii. 2, a tree of 



NOTES. 



237 



life, designed for the healing of the nations, (or the uncon- 
verted peoples, as that word invariably means in the Scriptures.) 

The rewards of suffering for and with the Lord Jesus are ar- 
ranged in Rev. ii. and iii. according to the order of the events 
connected with the Second Advent, as preceding, attending, or 
succeeding it. 

1. Bliss in Paradise, ii. 7. 

2. A biessed resurrection, ii. 11. 

3. A participation of Christ's Advent, ii. 17. (com p. xix. 

11, 12.) 

4. A participation of Christ's power, ii. 26. 

5. A participation of his victory, iii. 5. 

6. A participation of his established kingdom, iii. 12. 

7. A participation of his throne, iii. 21. 

Note 4, page 176. 

A valued friend has directed my attention to the following 
passage of Origen's, quoted by Mr. Gresswell, (Parables vi. 
405.) Tt illustrates the position of the Homily. 

Puto enim quod sancti quique discedentes de hac vita perma 
nebunt in loco aliquo — quern Paradisum dicit Scriptura divina, 
velut in quodam eruditionis loco, et ut ita dixerim, auditorio 
vel schola animarum, in quo de omnibus his quse in terris vide- 
rant doceantur, indicia quoque qusedam accipiant de consequen- 
tibus et futuris, sicut in hoc quoque vita positi indicia qusedam 
futurorum, licet per speculum et enigmata, tamen ex aliqua 
parte conceperunt, qua? manifestius et lucidius Sanctis in suis 
et locis et temporibus revelentur. — De Principiis, ii. xi. 6. 
Oper. 1. 106. c— f. 

Objection has been taken to the theory of a progressive illu- 
mination, imparted by the Holy Spirit, through the Church, in 
the Church's invisible state. If there be no such progressive 
illumination, there seems nothing left for us but to embrace the 
dangerous notion that there is a pause of the soul. The secret 
history of the objection is plainly this : that the Church, as it 
is invisible, is the medium still of illumination, and that the no- 
tion of a dispersion of spirits through the heavenly region, 



238 



NOTES. 



(where a sudden knowledge of heavenly things is allowed,) is 
thus contradicted. 

Note 5, page 178. 

Th is is the sense of xotuaouai, which occurs in reference to 
the departed, St John xi. 11. Acts vii. 60 xiii. 36. 1 Cor vii. 
39. xi. 30. xv. 6. 18, 20, 51. 1 Thes. iv. 13, 14, 15. 2 Pet. lii. 4. 
The word which represents sleep is strictly speaking never 
used of the departed in the New Testament. In acknowledged 
metaphor it occurs St. Mark v. 39. St. Luke viii. 52. 1 Thes. 
v. 10. 

In the following passage the author refers to the days of the 
Resurrection ; but surely the Scripture phrases he employs re- 
fer only to the state of the disembodied spirits, and are never 
employed to describe the season when the exceeding weight of 
glory, and the visible image of the Lord Jesus in the day of his 
triumph will be imparted to the redeemed. The words fitly 
portray the state in Paradise. 

"The condition of the blest in a better world is not likely to 
be (as some take for granted,) a state of mere repose, of total 
inactivity, in which they will be occupied in mere contempla- 
tion, without having properly anything to do ; as if " peace" 
and " rest" necessarily implied utter indolence. On the con- 
trary, there seems every reason to believe that though they will 
"rest from their labors," yet they will still be employed in do- 
ing good offices to the children of their Heavenly Father" — 
Scripture revelations respecting Angels, by a Country Parsons 
{Parker, 1851) p. 27. 



%* Note at page 53. — The four orthodox sects were 
founded by Abu-Hanifa, Al-Shafar, Malec-ebn-ans, and Ahmed- 
ebn-Hanbal. The four Caliph Successors were Abu-Bekr, 
Omar, Othman, and Ali. — See Taylor, cap. xii, and vi. 



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